Independent since 2002 Issue No. 1102 Week of November 7, 2026 Get the free email dispatch →

Home Issue: 347

Issue: 347

October 22, 2009

Guest Commentary

“Sal Si Puedes!” – Barack Obama and an Election for Empire

By John Hayakawa Török Guest Commentator

[Revised from a talk Mr. Török gave at the World Association of International Studies Conference, “Globalities and Localities,” October 11, Stanford University] How historic was Barack Obama’s election as the forty-fourth president of the United States of America? For the Atlantic world Obama’s election was a change, as persons of African descent were historically traded,…

[Revised from a talk Mr. Török gave at the World Association of International Studies Conference, "Globalities and Localities," October 11, Stanford University] How historic was Barack…

Continue reading 12 min

Guest Commentary

Shariah in Lawless Somalia

By Abukar Arman Guest Commentator

Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested (yet seldom debated) than in war-weary Somalia where each of the entities competing for power claims to have embraced it while condemning its detractor, or rather, its enemy, as a dangerous imposter. All the colorful politics motivating each contender aside, the most pressing question begging an answer…

Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested (yet seldom debated) than in war-weary Somalia where each of the entities competing for power claims to have…

Continue reading 4 min

Color of Law

Governor Rick Perry and His Texas Death Machine Are In Big Trouble

By David A. Love, JD Executive Editor

When criminals are about to be caught, they try to hide their wrongdoing. When drug dealers hear the police sirens, they dump the stash in the alley or flush it down the toilet. When the Nazi officers in the concentration camps heard the allied forces approaching, they destroyed—and in many cases murdered—the evidence. There’s something…

When criminals are about to be caught, they try to hide their wrongdoing. When drug dealers hear the police sirens, they dump the stash in the…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

Morehouse’s Non-Tolerance for Gays

By The Reverend Irene Monroe Editorial Board

Morehouse College has a problem with its dress-code offenders. These dress-code offenders wear baggy pants, du-rags, flash their “bling bling” like gold chains, and “decorative orthodontic appliances” like gold teeth, and tattoos, bringing too much of black urban ghetto life to an elite college that fashions itself as the paragon of black manhood. In Morehouse’s…

Morehouse College has a problem with its dress-code offenders. These dress-code offenders wear baggy pants, du-rags, flash their “bling bling” like gold chains, and “decorative orthodontic…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

The Crisis Pimps versus the Obama Puppet

By Larry Pinkney Editorial Board

The avariciously evil corporate Republicrat political machine of so-called “Democrats” and Republicans that created the Obama puppet has simultaneously also spawned the inevitable rightwing crisis pimps. Who are the crisis pimps? They are the slimy, rightwing, lying opportunist purveyors of misinformation, disinformation, racism, and fear mongering, all in an effort to ensure that the Obama…

The avariciously evil corporate Republicrat political machine of so-called “Democrats” and Republicans that created the Obama puppet has simultaneously also spawned the inevitable rightwing crisis pimps.…

Continue reading 4 min

The African World

BlackCommentator.com and On-Line Journalism

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Editorial Board

Every on-line magazine or journal faces some of the same challenges, the most important being, how to raise sufficient funds in order to survive. Yet this question is set against a bigger one: what is the actual role of an on-line magazine? So, I am going to do something a bit different: I am going…

Every on-line magazine or journal faces some of the same challenges, the most important being, how to raise sufficient funds in order to survive. Yet this…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

Afghanistan – African American Leadership

By Dr. Ron Walters Editorial Board

I am opposed to the war in Afghanistan because it will continue to cost the United States – and the least well-off communities within the country – people and material resources that we cannot afford. I believe Vice President Joe Biden has a point that President Barack Obama should not send tens of thousands more…

I am opposed to the war in Afghanistan because it will continue to cost the United States – and the least well-off communities within the country…

Continue reading 4 min

$ $ Contribute $ $