Category: Guest Commentary

On February 18, Chicago native Shani Davis won the 1,000-meter speed skating competition at the Winter Olympics, becoming the first African-American ever to win the gold medal for an individual event in the games. What followed was the kind of slap in the face that has become an all-too-common smudge in the area of race…

President Bush, during a recent speech to a predominantly white audience, voiced his concerns about the state of affairs in American white communities. “The epidemic of whites involved in drunk-driving fatality accidents is deplorable,” President Bush said. He cited the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2000 statistics that showed that white male drivers between the…

Congress passed a federal budget that will shake the foundation of our country for years to come. On Feb 1, they voted to drastically reduce income, food, education, and medicine for US youth, infants, elders, caregivers, and people with disabilities. In the same bill Congress slipped in their mandated reevaluation of the experimental welfare bill,…

When the first black Africans were on their way to Brazil, in the 16th century, considering their conditions in the ships, they could conclude that their destiny would not be rosy. What they and nobody else at that time could not guess is that the country would be the last one in the world to…

Like millions around the world, I watched the funeral of Coretta Scott King with fond remembrances and pain. When I was a struggling doctoral student, Mrs. King and Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. were very kind to me as I did my research and wrote my dissertation, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: Rhetorician of Revolt.” My…

Before anyone tags me a race traitor, Uncle Tom, O’Reilly-phile, Wanksta, Cosby Jr., or any of the other sundry slurs reserved by blacks, for blacks who commit the street sin of not keepin’ it real, let me say this: I love hip-hop music: The way BB King loves Lucille. The way the “silly rabbit” loves…

Africa is poor and destined to remain poor for quite some time because of bad governance, failure to develop natural resources, corruption, inadequate or non-existent primary educational, scientific and technical training. Western countries and Euro-America are rich, because they have good governance, have developed their natural resources, have credible legal systems that are able to…

During the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday celebration at the Kennedy Center, President George W. Bush reiterated his call to Congress to reauthorize those sections of the Voting Rights Act that are set to expire in August 2007. This is, of course, no idle gesture. The President should be applauded for his stand, and Congress…

Nearly fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a voting rights speech given before an audience of 20,000 in Washington, D.C., recognized that “all types of conniving methods are being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters.” Unfortunately, Dr. King’s words ring true today in Alabama, where the Secretary of State, the…

Many people working for justice today stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King, Jr., but I believe King’s vision of justice is often gravely limited and misunderstood. Too many people thought then, and continue to think, that King’s statements regarding justice were only about race and the African-American community. We fail to see how…