Category: The African World

With the election of Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency, his former Senate seat is now open. A series of discussions are unfolding as to who Illinois Governor Blagojevich should appoint. One of the more interesting names is Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. There are three main reasons that I am interested in seeing his appointment:…

I found myself facing a peculiar choice. Because I was taking Election Day off to do election work, I could have submitted an absentee ballot. In fact, that would probably have been the most logical thing to do. It would have saved me a lot of time. I kept procrastinating in filing for such a…

Ok folks, it is time to decide. Do we feel that there is nothing particularly different between Obama and McCain such that it does not matter who wins, or, in the alternative, have we concluded that there is enough that is different that we MUST cast our vote for Senator Obama? In case you have…

The “Joe the Plumber” story has unraveled, yet Senator McCain continues to make reference to what is, in fact, a mythical character. Sure, there is a Joe, but he is not what he described himself to be. This has been exposed. Yet, McCain continues to reference “Joe the Plumber” as if to lend credibility to…

In the face of economic crises there is always a search for scapegoats. Particularly in the case of modern capitalism, there remains a certain level of disbelief that crises are built into the system, i.e., that capitalism generates crises (and always has!). Because many of us would rather believe that capitalism is a rational system…

I had almost literally just finished reading William Gumede’s acclaimed biography of South African President Thabo Mbeki, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC: Second Edition (New York: Zed Press, 2007), when it was announced that President Mbeki was being sacked by the leadership of the African National Congress. To say…

There is a struggle underway in Bolivia which has been largely overlooked or misrepresented in the mainstream circles in the USA. For the first time ever in Bolivia, the majority of the population exercises its rights as fully recognized citizens through electoral and civic participation. Efforts to battle poverty and illiteracy, the largest societal ills,…

Every year, with the opening of the football season, I have the same complaint: the name of the Washington, DC football team is obnoxious, racist (against Native Americans) and must be changed. And, every year I receive in response generally positive feedback from regular people who hold the same concern. Yet the team’s name does…

Slightly more than a year ago, a Haitian associate of mine was kidnapped in Haiti and, from the looks of it, was murdered. His body has not been recovered and nothing has been heard from him. Despite significant international attention to his case, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, a noted Haitian activist and leader, an associate of…

With the end of the Republican Convention one could almost hear the voice, drawing from Shakespeare, announce: “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!” In other words, it’s on. Senator Obama will need to win the November election based on much more than the excitement that he garnered in the primaries. Even his…