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Issue: 659

June 23, 2016

Color of Law

After Orlando Shooting, Who’s Really to Blame for America’s Gun Problem?

By David A. Love, JD Executive Editor

Congress is culpable when its members accept money from the NRA, through a system of legalized bribery that corrupts lawmakers, and prevents them from passing any sensible gun regulations, including gun bans for suspected terrorists.

In this land of the free, where gun-rights zealots tell us that guns don't kill people, people do, no one wants to assume responsibility for the…

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Commentary

Foolish Words in the Wake of Tragedy

By Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD Editorial Board

It does not erode anyone’s second amendment rights to restrict their right to assault weapons. One does not need a weapon with multiple rounds to protect oneself or, for that matter, to “hunt”. Whenever those NRA folks start talking about hunting, though, I really want to know what (who) it is they want to hunt.

The cretin who took an assault weapon into Pulse, an Orlando nightclub, on “salsa night” is beneath contempt. Was his target the LBGTQ community, Latinos, or…

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Commentary

American Politicians Opposing BDS Ignore Oppressed Palestinians

By John Funiciello Columnist

Most of the powerful pay lip service to these rights, but, when it comes to their own political careers, they will do whatever they can to continue in their positions of power and their close association with the rich who fund their political lives.

In their haste to ensure the Israelis and the Right Wing Republicans and Democrats that they will fully support the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, American…

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Commentary

The Cartel for Corporate Reform’s “Ratf**king” of Public Education, 1990 to the Present

By Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, M.S.P.H. Columnist

In recent years, the Cartel has targeted middle-class suburban districts for corporate charters as they view them as yielding greater profits to be raped and pillaged. Additionally, it has undertaken other strategies to fast track public school privatization.

Update: Members of Rev. Jevon Caldwell-Gross’ A.M.E. church congregation (he was recently appointed to the Montclair, NJ School Board by Mayor Robert Jackson) are preparing a…

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Guest Commentary

Black, Raped, Shamed, and Supported: Our Responses to Rape Can Build or Destroy Our Community

By Jennifer M. Gómez, M.S. Guest Commentator

Black people are often placed in an impossible position of having to choose whom to protect; this protection can be so necessary against a society that alternates between denigrating us and erasing our very existence. That truth does not mean we should turn on each other through violence or, perhaps even more dangerous, in our reactions to such violence.

“We have to become accustomed to criticizing the things we love.”—Angela DavisThe issue of campus sexual violence has received national attention, with many universities grappling with…

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Sharp n’ Blunt

Donald Trump . . . Merely White Trash With Money

By Desi Cortez Columnist

How can people of color be “blindsided” by what is quickly becoming a nation-wide “White backlash” for which Trump is the people’s champion. That’s White people’s champion. For everyone else who isn’t White - this is the beginning of a national nightmare.

“President Trump . . . .” It seems a multitude of Black Americans are “shocked” this hospitality and lodging hustler, who occasionally lives above a saloon/gambling…

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Guest Commentary

An Emancipation Proclamation for the Digital Age

By Alfredo Lopez and Jackie Smith Guest Commentators

It's daunting to be a person of color in public situations and debates on the internet and Black people take the brunt of that repressive beating. As a result, Black people tend to congregate and participate only on certain types of websites while not doing much more than "surfing” the rest of the Net.

We just celebrated "Juneteenth" (the start of the end of slavery in the U.S.) amid tumultuous and sometimes confusing politics and what appears to be an…

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Commentary

Are We Our Own Worst Enemy?

By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD Columnist

In resolving the question of whether “we are our own worst enemy,” we should reflect that for over three hundred years white people openly discussed African people as a problem (1600 - 1900). Today they still discuss us as a problem but the language is coded differently.

How many times have you heard someone of African ancestry say that “We [Black people] are our own worst enemy?” If you have lived among African…

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