Category: Guest Commentary

MINUSTAH’s arrival in Port-au-Prince in June of last year was a bit like letting air out of your lungs after holding your breath for several minutes. It is such a relief that you think, momentarily, you might not have to hold your breath ever again. That’s how it was in June 2004 – “at least…

“It is wise to always err on the side of life” – President George W. Bush “…there’s the nagging suspicion that if Schiavo were black the media would not have made her a cause celebre, conservative groups would not frantically storm the barricades to keep her feeding tubes hooked up, and that Congress would not…

Canadians are no better or no worse than any other people. They have been on the right and wrong sides of history. Like every other nation Canada has produced revolutionaries, working class heroes, buffoons and idiots. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was forced to take the correct position on missile defense by refusing to back…

It seems that were it not for bad news there would be almost no news in Black America these days. Black folk, in case you hadn’t heard, are in the midst of yet another crisis. This time it’s a debt crisis, particularly in short-term revolving debt (primarily credit cards, but also payday loans, car title…

The U.S. Senate has passed a dream bill for credit card and financial service companies that, if passed by the House, will land millions of American families in debt slavery. Rather than being able to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and make a difficult new start, families and individuals will be placed on long-term payment…

“Ghetto,” when used colloquially as an adjective, is the most racist, derogatory word in the common lexicon, given its so subtle insinuations and layers. Employed to mean “uncouth,” “unruly,” or “parvenu,” “ghetto” is the most popular, new code word to stigmatize blacks. Referring to unacceptable behaviors as “ghetto” clearly links those behaviors to “the ghetto,”…

Over the past few months President Bush and the Republican Party have been making blatant efforts to court African American voters through black churches. But like the European slavers of old trading guns and rum to African kings for enslaving their own, Republicans offer only disaster. The GOP’s questionable attempts to recast themselves as the…

For those of us who maintain some constant involvement in the many, many conflicts that face Blacks in the 21st Century, individually and in the collective, what one fights for and who one is fighting for, seems to always be a point of contention for some people. While some understand the complexities of black struggle…

For those interested in an alternative history of American slavery, the first installment of PBS’s new four-hour series, “Slavery and the Making of America” (February 9 and 16) began on a promising note. The first American bond-laborers, we are shown in vivid color and told by narrator Morgan Freeman, were a rather mixed group: English,…

When he took his place behind the podium at Brown Chapel AME Church and began his address to young civil rights activists in Selma, Alabama, Malcolm X had less than three weeks to live. Invited to speak by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Malcolm traveled to Selma to address 500 people on February 4,…