Category: Guest Commentary

Fifty years ago, the late Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, catalyzing history-making events. Imagine, however, if Rosa Parks had lived in New Orleans in September 2005 and was trying to escape from the gathering clouds of Hurricane Katrina. Would she have jumped in her car? Would she…

There is political opportunism, scapegoating, and desperation, but Toronto Liberal MP Dan McTeague has raised (or rather lowered) the bar with his suggestion that Immigration Minister Joe Volpe ban New York-based rapper 50 Cent from entry into Canada for a series of concerts beginning in December. What is equally surprising is that Toronto’s “leftist” mayor…

Public Schools may seem like the problem but charter schools are not the solution. Education is in a constant state of revolving door politics. As presidents change every leap year, so does the fate of public policy. As an example, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the postmodern War on Poverty. In comparing former President…

As we approach a significant benchmark in the celebration of the King holiday, its 20th Anniversary, we should pay special attention to what King really stood for and how he’s been “commercialized” in his afterlife. Signed into law in November of 1983, the first official “legal” holiday (off day) was Monday, January 20, 1986. King…

Rosa Parks was loved all over the world. She visited Canada in 1998 and was given an honorary degree from Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Parks became the first woman in U.S. history to lie in the Capital Rotunda, joining a select few – including presidents and war heroes – given a…

On a Friday morning in early November, I, along with hundreds of others, attended the memorial service at Riverside Church in New York City for Judge Constance Baker Motley. Unlike the services of Mrs. Rosa Parks, held earlier in the week, there was little fanfare. There was no two-hour wait to join the many persons…

During more than three years of publication, BC has gathered around it a truly talented band of writers, who are kind enough to contribute their brilliance to our humble publication. These ladies and gentlemen have allowed us to fulfill our mission: to define and refine progressive thought in the United States. Not all of them…

In the wake of recent apologies by Wachovia and other corporations for past ties to slavery, we have heard angry tirades much like those from a few years ago, when reparations opponents denounced those who sought redress for slavery in often heated rhetoric. Then, as now, the accusations center on history. The well-publicized criticism of…

Our family recently celebrated Independence Day in classic American style, by hauling our two kids and grandma to upstate New York to take in the grandeur of Niagara Falls and a spectacular fireworks display. Along the way, we got a dramatic reminder of why certain American values embodied in July 4th’s celebration of freedom are…

Rather than just reacting to the Mexican government’s recent attempt to honor Memin Pinguin, a popular comic strip character who also looks every bit the pickaninny caricature, with moral outrage we should see it for what it is: an opportunity. The debate over the inherent racism of the stamps and what it says about the…