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  • The Obamas' Class Struggle

    For months before my family left upstate New York for Houston, I lay awake at night worrying about where our oldest child would attend school. Then I’d wake up from my scanty slumber to begin the daily Internet quest for the “perfect” school: one we could afford (tuition-free) that scored well on statewide tests, had…

  • Magical Negro in Chief

    By now we’ve become familiar with the Negro Spirit Guide in pop culture. Think Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Sister Act and The Long Walk Home. Laurence Fishburne in Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Matrix. The Matrix was a twofer: Fishburne leads Keanu Reeves’ character to another black guide, Gloria Foster. Sidney Poitier made a…

  • The Prop 8 Blame Game

    Somebody forgot to tell gay people that race wars are no longer in vogue. While the rest of the country has spent the last week reveling in the afterglow of Grant Park, gay America has devolved into a Sarah Palin rally. The issue is a particularly nasty California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which passed last…

  • Goodbye to 'Mama Africa'

    Going on stage to sing is like stepping into a perfect world. The past means nothing. Worries about the future do not exist. All that matters is the music. I live for this…. My voice is heard by the people when I speak about the evils that are strangling South Africa. Every day there is…

  • Barack and My Uncle Fred

    Barack Obama went to the White House Monday to begin the transition to his presidency. He arrived, protected by the Secret Service, in a chauffeured limousine, to enter the front gate as the president-elect of the United States of America. Yes, this does confirm that Nov. 4, 2008 really did happen. A black man did…

  • What Valerie Wants

    The news that Barack Obama’s confidant and transition team co-chair, Valerie Jarrett, may be the president-elect’s choice to replace him in the Senate tells you two things for certain: 1) How attractive a seat in the U. S. Senate is for anyone interested in political office. 2) How indebted Obama is to Jarrett for his…

  • Free Our Minds

    I thought a lot on Election Day about limitations, how we as Americans agreed both explicitly and implicitly, from the nation’s founding, that a black man would never become president. Masters certainly knew it. And from the wretched status to which they were consigned, the slaves no doubt could scarcely imagine it. Yet, in a…

  • What We Did

    Now that Barack Obama has claimed the presidency, it’s natural to wonder how and with whom he will govern. To pull America out of the multiple and mounting crises that it now confronts, he needs the House and Senate to be a well-oiled legislative machine. The fresh wave of Democratic candidates that surged into Congress…

  • Upholding Our End

    The landslide election of Barack Obama represents something extraordinary—but not just because our president-elect has brown skin. What is equally extraordinary is the rainbow-colored, mass movement that consolidated itself to catapult him into the White House. Even as we celebrate the phenomenon that is Obama, let us not lose sight of an even bigger phenomenon—that…

  • Trickle Up History

    We all know by now that Barack Obama made history last Tuesday night.But so did Victoria Middlebrook. For all the momentous change at the top in this election year, it comes as a result of a triumphant change at the bottom. Obama rode a wave of reform created by millions of people like Middlebrook. Middlebrook,…