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Issue: 143

June 23, 2005

Cover Story

Reject the Language of White Supremacy

By The Black Commentator Guest Commentator

As we move toward an historic national Black convention in the first quarter of 2006 – “Going back to Gary,” as convener William Lucy, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists phrased it, referring to the 1972 National Black Political Convention in that Indiana city – it is imperative that we reexamine the language…

As we move toward an historic national Black convention in the first quarter of 2006 – “Going back to Gary,” as convener William Lucy, President of…

Continue reading 15 min

Commentary

Freedom Rider: RX for Black Hearts

By Margaret Kimberley Guest Commentator

It is hard to oppose an effort that purports to improve health care for African Americans. Black people suffer more from everything bad, including ill health (see Rockeymoore, BC, June 9, 2005). When a drug company announced that it would market a heart failure treatment specifically for use by blacks, the silence from otherwise thoughtful…

It is hard to oppose an effort that purports to improve health care for African Americans. Black people suffer more from everything bad, including ill health…

Continue reading 6 min

Commentary

Slavery in the Third Millennium, Part III – Human Bondage Revisited: the Return of the Chain Gang

By Randall G. Shelden

In Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix), Sheriff Joe Arpaio is the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America.” He requires his inmates “to enroll in chain gangs to perform various community services. The alternative is lockdown with three other inmates in an 8- by 12-foot cell, for 23 hours a day. Chain gang participants wear uniforms with black…

In Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix), Sheriff Joe Arpaio is the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America.” He requires his inmates “to enroll in chain gangs to perform…

Continue reading 7 min

Commentary

Think Piece: The Black Church: Now, More Than Ever

By Reynard N. Blake, Jr Guest Commentator

Black America is under siege. Black faith institutions, particularly Black churches, are being undermined on a number of fronts – culturally, via disunity, via fear, paternalism and misogyny, and plain old bribes. Though there is a historic precedent to undermine the lives of African-Americans, African-Americans are weathering new and continuing assaults on a number of…

Black America is under siege. Black faith institutions, particularly Black churches, are being undermined on a number of fronts – culturally, via disunity, via fear, paternalism…

Continue reading 9 min

Commentary

Harold Ford, Social Security, and Telling Lies

By Charles Cinque Fulwood Guest Commentator

Welcome to 21st Century Toming. The cool, articulate (“He’s very well-spoken”) and well-dressed Negroes offer dangerous confusion to too many younger people, who often get these messages framed by such prattle as “post-civil rights” and “third wave” thinking. What appears at first glance to be a brand spanking new road map to lead us to…

Welcome to 21st Century Toming. The cool, articulate ("He's very well-spoken") and well-dressed Negroes offer dangerous confusion to too many younger people, who often get these…

Continue reading 6 min

Commentary

Clarence Thomas: Searching for Death While Burying the Truth

By Greg Moses

This article originally appeared in The Texas Civil Rights Review, under the title, “Race Bias and the Death Penalty One More Time: The Supreme Court Decision on Texas Death Row Prisoner, Thomas Miller-El.” In the recent dispute between Supreme Court justices over the question of race discrimination in jury selection, we find two warring camps…

This article originally appeared in The Texas Civil Rights Review, under the title, “Race Bias and the Death Penalty One More Time: The Supreme Court Decision…

Continue reading 23 min

Commentary

Who Appointed Tony Blair as Africa’s Messiah?

By Mark P. Fancher Guest Commentator

It is not uncommon for ocean waves to crash violently against the cliffs of the Ghanaian town of Elmina. Some speculate that the violent seas are a manifestation of the anger of the spirits of countless Africans who endured unspeakable tortures or violent deaths at a slave trading castle that still stands on the Elmina…

It is not uncommon for ocean waves to crash violently against the cliffs of the Ghanaian town of Elmina. Some speculate that the violent seas are…

Continue reading 5 min

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