Category: Guest Commentary

As I listened carefully to two recent campaign speeches by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Selma, Alabama, I experienced a profoundly nauseating feeling that caused me to regress psychologically to an affair several years ago, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. In this context, former President Bill Clinton was described by one Caucus participant…

When you’re black, the odds against you begin rolling before you like an uncontrolled ream of painter’s tape without enough adhesive to stick. Sometimes the naiveté of youth or absorption in pop culture deludes us, or at least extends the expiration date of the blinders of distraction. But for many of us, once you hit…

Poor and Working Class Black Hurricane Survivors Visit Venezuelan Communal Councils and Expose “Hatred” of the Poor by Progressive and Government Forces in the U.S. New Orleans, LA, March 1 – A delegation of four members of the New Orleans Survivor Council and two bottom-up organizers have just returned from a truly inspiring and life-changing…

On Thursday, February 22, the College Republicans group at New York University (NYU) organized a “game” they called “Find the Illegal Immigrant”. The Republican students had someone going around the campus with a tag saying “illegal immigrant”. The object of the “game” was to catch the “illegal immigrant” for a cash prize. This “game” held…

On February 27th, I participated in my first open act of civil disobedience as part of the Occupation Project. I, along with St. Louis local chapter President, Chuc Smith, three other veterans; Jim Allen, Harry Wyman and VFP office manager, Cherie Eichholz and Military Families Speak Out Member, D. Ridgley Brown, visited Representative Russ Carnahan’s…

Perhaps it’s a healthy sign of our collective sanity that a new Pew Center poll said 80% of voters aren’t yet able to indicate a candidate they’ll support in the 2008 presidential election, despite the premature media frenzy. Yet the day the poll was released, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack showed us a small group…

Misogynist political parties are exploiting women’s suffering for political purposes Iraqi society was shocked with an unprecedented issue of a woman stepping forward, voluntarily, and explaining that she was sexually assaulted by Iraqi security forces. Instead of pursuing an investigation into this assault allegation, or empowering the victim with moral support, opposing Islamist-sectarian factions competed…

Peace activist and gold star mother Cindy Sheehan and spokesperson for a war-based oligarchy George Will both published columns this weekend arguing that non-Americans are human beings. Sheehan’s column was written in response to an Associated Press article that provided evidence that Americans disagree with this claim. Will’s column, meanwhile, adds to this evidence by…

Each morning, Debra South Jones drives 120 miles into New Orleans to cook and serve over 300 hot free meals each day to people in New Orleans East, where she lived until Katrina took her home. Ms. Jones and several volunteers also distribute groceries to 18,000 families a month through their group, Just the Right…

While collating information related to BHM Heritage I was often asked by borough councils, “Black History Month? What is that”? Yet the event listings mainly come from an office just upstairs. Heritage threw out the questions of BHM, its origins, the idea behind it, who it is for and where it might be going, and…