Race and Beyond: Obama Should Speak Up
This column marks the first of a new weekly series on racial issues by Sam Fulwood III.
Try as he might, President Barack Obama can't elude the nation's complicated racial passions. For plainly obvious reasons, this president will be judged as none before him on how well he helps the nation grapple with the prickly passions that arise when Americans confront matters involving race. So far, Obama seems mistakenly resolute in avoiding any explicit effort on this front. -more-
WHAT TEA PARTY ACTIVISTS
OWE THE LIBERALS
By Sherwood Ross
Tea Party activists may put up as many billboards as they like accusing President Obama of "socialism" and comparing him to Hitler but the fact is the only people Obama bailed out so far work mostly on Wall Street, not Main Street. As for being "socialist," the biggest socialist enterprise Obama runs is the Pentagon, that is, if the Pentagon does not run him. The Pentagon qualifies as socialist because a majority of the contracts it lets to defense firms are no longer subject to competitive bidding. The favored contractors just line up at the trough. As for America's major export, these days, it's war, pure and simple. The military-industrial complex now supplies 68% of all the killing machines sold on the planet annually and rings the world with a thousand "defensive" bases. -more-
Dr. Alveda King Calls Country To Repent for Tolerating Racism, Including Those Who Support Planned Parenthood
"We all need to examine and repent of our own tolerance for discrimination," said Dr. Alveda King, "but to condemn an entire group because of a few people, yet support Planned Parenthood, an organization marinated in racism, is to strain out gnats and swallow a camel." -more-
Statement from NAACP LDF on Senate Attacks on Thurgood Marshall
WASHINGTON, June 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During the Senate confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan to be Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, several Senators have disparaged Justice Thurgood Marshall, his judicial philosophy, and his connection to Elena Kagan, who once clerked for Justice Marshall. In response to these attacks, NAACP LDF Director-Counsel John Payton issues the following statement: -more-
Commentary: Another White Actress to Play Cleopatra?
By Shirea L. Carroll
Essence.com - Just when we thought there weren't enough leading roles for Black women in Hollywood, they create one and give it to a White woman.-more-
Health Care Reform Could Be Fixed With Moral Fortitude
By Millard Hampton
Publisher
To a certain extent we have all heard and read news about our current health care system crisis. A crisis so staggering, that the health of millions of Americans has been affected. Our current health care crisis has possibly affected a family member or relative of every American in the United States.
Frontline produced an excellent show, "Ten Trillion and Counting" detailing the danger health care costs have placed on the ‘National Security’ of our great nation. U.S. Corporations and small businesses have become uncompetitive in a competitive world in producing goods and services. Health Care companies have made the United States, once the largest producer of goods in the world to a no show as a producer of goods. Millions of jobs have been lost due to companies having to close its doors due to tremendous health care expenses. -more-
The Makings of Modern Mis-Education
By Ezrah Aharone
Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black History Month and second Black PhD to graduate from Harvard, wrote the acclaimed The Mis-Education of the Negro way back in 1933. In the 1940s, psychologist Kenneth Clark’s “Doll Test,” demonstrated that Black children were being psychologically conditioned to yearn and favor the looks of White people at the expense of self-dislike. His critical findings were cited during Brown vs. Board of Education when the Supreme Court desegregated schools in 1954. -more-
The Moore Principal’
Straight Talk from Main Street
By Charles L. Moore, CPA (Lansing, Michigan)
The recent vote in the Massachusetts senate race was a cry for straight talk and real action, not the political speech that leaves the American people without jobs and small businesses without access to credit--the life blood for both. Immediate interventions are needed now before the second wave of the recession heads our way like the flow of raging water after a dam has broken. The American people know that the walls of the dam are on the verge of giving way, so let’s fix it before the waters begin to flow. -more-
Obama’s State of the Union Speech: An Oscar-Worthy Performance
By Kam Williams
The novel Animal Farm was crafted by George Orwell as a dire warning about the potential abuse of power through the manipulation of language as a subtle means of mind control. The cautionary tale’s prophetic message was that the masses might be very gullible to the seductive rhetoric of a charismatic visionary capable of masking more Machiavellian intentions. Listening to President Obama’s soporific double-speak during his State of the Union address the other night reminded me of the climax of Orwell’s chilling morality play, when the animals belatedly wised up too late to differentiate between their newly-elected leaders and the evil exploiters they had sought to replace. -more-
The State of the Union 2010
By Millard Hampton
Publisher
President Obama, the darling of Wall Street gave his first State of the Union address. President Obama began his speech reviewing America's hard times and the struggles this nation has suffered in that past. Obama spoke of the letters he had read from Americans suffering due to this current economy.
However, President Obama missed the mark in not telling Americans what they wanted to hear. An apology from him and our representatives for performing their jobs poorly. Obama bragged about how he helped the banks recover but didn't mention their record pay in bonuses. He didn't speak of the tax inequities of Corporations as compared to American citizens. He spoke of the success of stabilizing the financial system for the rich and ignored the dwindling American pocket book. -more-
EURO-CENTRICITY ISN'T RACISM, BUT
AFRO-CENTRICITY AND KWANZAA ARE?
By H. Lewis Smith
H. Lewis Smith
Kwanzaa celebrations seem to be an enigma to many blacks, and some feel that they have a legitimate cause or concern for disregarding the event. For instance, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, is quoted as saying, “Celebration of Kwanzaa is racist; blacks should see themselves as Americans – not African Americans, thus no separate holiday. Get rid of it, reject it completely; just as we would do if a white racist came up with a false holiday to celebrate whiteness.” -more-
Nigerian Americans Do Double
Take on Terrorism Suspect
By Edwin Okong’o
New America Media, News Report - When Herbert Igbanugo heard that a Nigerian man had been arrested for allegedly attempting to blow up a plane on Christmas Day, he didn’t think the suspect was born in the West African nation. -more-