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Home Issue: 151

Issue: 151

September 22, 2005

Cover Story

CBC Monitor – Watchdogs of the Black Caucus

By The Black Commentator Guest Commentator

For the first time in history, an African American group has graded the Congressional Black Caucus’s legislative performance on a curve that reflects the Black Political Consensus. The results were startling. Harold Ford, Jr., of Memphis, registered only a five percent positive grade, based on his votes on nine “bright line” issues that came before…

For the first time in history, an African American group has graded the Congressional Black Caucus’s legislative performance on a curve that reflects the Black Political…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

Rescue Came from the Grass Roots

By Bruce Dixon Editor

From her Atlanta home, former Gulf Coast resident Latosha Brown and a few friends watched the man-made catastrophe unfold in the wake Hurricane Katrina. “We kept expecting to see the National Guard, the government, the Red Cross, somebody to do something. The idea that our leaders would allow people to fend for themselves two, three,…

From her Atlanta home, former Gulf Coast resident Latosha Brown and a few friends watched the man-made catastrophe unfold in the wake Hurricane Katrina. "We kept…

Continue reading 9 min

Commentary

Freedom Rider: Where was Dick Cheney During Katrina?

By Margaret Kimberley Guest Commentator

Where was Dick Cheney? In the days following the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina, the Vice President of the United States became the invisible man. The vice president’s job is to succeed the president in case of death, impeachment or resignation, and to preside over the Senate. He also attends the funerals of world leaders…

Where was Dick Cheney? In the days following the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina, the Vice President of the United States became the invisible man. The…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

A Pitiable Response to Katrina

By Rep. Bennie G. Thompson

A few short weeks ago, America was shocked, stunned and spellbound by the specter of a flooded city, desperate people wading through water to find food and shelter, and children being airlifted by helicopters to escape the certain death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters. As many sat transfixed in front of their televisions…

A few short weeks ago, America was shocked, stunned and spellbound by the specter of a flooded city, desperate people wading through water to find food…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

Think Piece: Vote or Die – The Lessons of Katrina

By Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, PhD

“Vote or Die!” was the provocative imperative Hip Hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs issued to young would-be voters during the 2004 presidential election cycle. At the time, some ridiculed Combs for sensationalism but now the slogan seems more like a haunting foreshadowing of things that would come. Today as the human toll continues to rise…

“Vote or Die!” was the provocative imperative Hip Hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs issued to young would-be voters during the 2004 presidential election cycle. At the…

Continue reading 10 min

Commentary

New Orleans Unmasks Apartheid, American Style

By Jason Miller Guest Commentator

What is the recipe for a toxic sludge potent enough to destroy a heavily populated city and inflict infection with a mere splash? Start with a force of nature powerful beyond belief. Mix in an ample supply of sewage, garbage, brackish water from Lake Ponchatrain, floating corpses of humans and animals, and various and sundry…

What is the recipe for a toxic sludge potent enough to destroy a heavily populated city and inflict infection with a mere splash? Start with a…

Continue reading 17 min

Commentary

Wade in the Water: Reflections on Race, Class and Katrina

By Alton B. Pollard, III

More than forty years have passed since James Baldwin first tried to reason with white people in the land of his birth to learn to “put yourself in the skin of a black person” (no less a poor person, gay person or any one of the multitudes of the nation’s disinherited). The words are taken…

More than forty years have passed since James Baldwin first tried to reason with white people in the land of his birth to learn to “put…

Continue reading 6 min

Commentary

Brighter Prospects? Ms. Bush and White America’s Rhetoric of Limited Alternatives

By Jacqueline Bacon Guest Commentator

Most of us are by now familiar with Barbara Bush’s assessment of the situation of poor evacuees from New Orleans transported to the Astrodome in Houston. Noting on American Public Media’s radio program Marketplace that “so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway,” the former first lady concluded, with…

Most of us are by now familiar with Barbara Bush’s assessment of the situation of poor evacuees from New Orleans transported to the Astrodome in Houston.…

Continue reading 7 min

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