Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Administration must acknowledge and address the growing crisis in the Black community

Heaster Wheeler, Executive Director of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, also contributed to this article. The recent employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that Black unemployment is on the rise again (returning to 16.5%). These figures remind us that the persistent economic...

April 16th, 2010 | Featured, Racial Equity | Read More

The state of Navajo – sort of – and other health care experiments

Congress passed the health care reform legislation – and President Barack Obama signed the bill into law. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act was included – and now we can put this debate to rest. Right? Actually no. There are many more debates about health care reform to come – probably for...

April 13th, 2010 | Featured, Health, Racial Equity | Read More

It’s about race –Michael Steele and the RNC

Figure/Ground Image Generally when someone says that a situation isn’t about race, they are mistaken. It is. At least for somebody the situation is about race. The questions become just how much of it is about race and how many somebodies are we talking about? A current case in point is the evaluation...

April 9th, 2010 | Featured, Politics | Read More

The last white people in America, part II

In early 2009, groups composed of the most tattered refugees from John McCain’s 2008 Presidential election defeat gathered in various places around the country. Those of us who were willing to admit the truth, knew all along the Teabaggers, as these groups came to be called, were not protesting...

March 26th, 2010 | Politics, US | Read More

Talking effectively about race and policy in an Obama Era

Conventional wisdom says “Stay away from race. It’s a distraction at best and polarizing at worst.” With a Black president, this advice seems to be repeated louder and more often than before. Unfortunately, for those interested in progressive policy, President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress...

March 10th, 2010 | Transforming Race Conference | Read More

Will the new jobs bill help hardest hit areas?

In response to our nation’s ongoing economic challenges, a new federal jobs bill is expected from Congress soon. The Kirwan Institute has been tracking the impact of federal efforts to alleviate the economic crisis for the past year. Given our experiences tracking the impact of American Recovery...

February 26th, 2010 | Featured, Racial Equity | Read More

Race and campaign finance

Out of the blue, I was invited to be an official blogger at CPAC 2010. I quickly seized the opportunity to be a witness to the rebirth of a movement that was declared dead a year ago. What a difference a year makes. This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference attracted 10,000 attendees, who...

February 26th, 2010 | Featured, Politics | Read More

Is This Video Racist?

In a previous blog post, I argued that to determine if an expression of humor was racist, it is necessary to carefully examine it’s impact. In this post, I want to consider a particularly ambiguous case: Is this video racist? Let’s start with a little background information: The video was...

February 24th, 2010 | Featured | Read More

A conversation with Dr. Cornel West

Hi. This is Kathleen Wells. I’m the political correspondent for Race-Talk. Last week, I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Cornel West. He is the professor of Religion and African American studies at Princeton University. Hope you enjoy listening to the conversation. Listen Now Kathleen...

February 23rd, 2010 | Cornel West, Featured | Read More

PREVIEW: A conversation with Dr. Cornel West

Last week, I had a conversation with the self-professed “bluesman in the life of the mind” and “jazzman in the world of ideas,” Dr. Cornel West. He talked with me about President Barack Obama’s first year in the White House and spoke with me about the historical significance and the...

February 22nd, 2010 | Cornel West, Featured | Read More

Working toward cooperative solutions to promote equality for all

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President, gave me hope that our Country was at last moving forward from centuries of racist thought and practice. Jimmy Carter By the fall of 2009, the President was rejecting suggestions that political opposition was couched in racist thinking....

February 22nd, 2010 | Featured, Transforming Race Conference | Read More

The rhetoric of redemption in presidential elections

In the eight presidential elections over the course of the past thirty years, the presidential challenger has defeated the incumbent party candidate on only four occasions—in 1980, 1992, 2000, and 2008. The formula for victory was no secret then, nor is it now. The challenger triumphed by successfully...

February 22nd, 2010 | Politics, US | Read More

Race and recession

By Dominique Apollon, Research Director, Applied Research Center The Great Recession has led to lasting unemployment for many, the greatest number since the last downturn in the 1980s. Those hardest hit include people of color and single women and mothers who have been troubled by an utter lack of...

February 19th, 2010 | Featured, Transforming Race Conference | Read More

U.S. Brags Haiti response is a “Model” while more than a million remain homeless in Haiti

Despite the fact that over a million people remained homeless in Haiti one month after the earthquake, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Ken Merten, is quoted at a State Department briefing on February 12, saying “In terms of humanitarian aid delivery…frankly, it’s working really well,...

February 14th, 2010 | Haiti | Read More