Margaret Kimberley

“I wanted to be the first in my family to actually own a home. I wanted to break the cycle, to show my kids that if you work hard, there’s nothing you can’t do.” – Pocono homebuyer to the New York Times It is ironic that Black people will often accept the notion that their…

A president who “won” despite getting fewer votes than his opponent should have to work very hard to be elected again. If he also presided over the loss of 2 million jobs he ought to be in even bigger trouble. If that president is also bogged down militarily in a foreign country when he said…

George W. Bush and the Republican Party love embryos and fetuses, but their concern for children who have already been born is less apparent. The “unborn” are so loved by the right wing that the President signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA), a federal law that increases penalties for assaults or injuries to…

“Democracy entails not just majority rule, but protection of minority rights.” – L. Paul Bremer III, Administrator, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Paul Bremer made that statement after giving an overly optimistic yearend review of the American occupation of Iraq. The belated American allegiance to the protection of minority rights is an effort to keep…

It is rare for every publication in New York City to give equal attention to the same news story. A report issued recently by the Community Service Society of New York accomplished that rare feat. The think tank and social service agency issued a report, “A Crisis of Black Male Employment: Unemployment and Joblessness in…

In the year 2000 America was treated like a pesky third world nation in need of regime change. Those who had been out of power for eight long years chose not to endure that humiliation any longer. They decided to win and they weren’t going to let something as insignificant as democracy stand in the…

Jayson Blair was once a reporter at the New York Times. The Times is America’s newspaper of record, “the gray lady” with all the news that is fit to print. Last year Blair was caught in a maelstrom of bad publicity when he was forced to admit that he had made up names, stolen stories…

Imagine a retirement program that paid recipients a defined benefit for as long as they live after retirement and also paid death benefits to survivors and that had the added attraction of paying for disability. We already have such a program. It is called social security. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently proposed cutting back…

What would you call someone who appeared at a Black History Month celebration and then proceeded to dismiss Black people? You would call that person United States Representative Harold Ford, Jr. The good Congressman accepted an invitation to speak at a Black History Month program at Lane College in Tennessee. But as we already know…