On Juan Williams and why Black folks really can’t talk about race

Race-talk is American’s national hiccup. This is nothing new. Many perspectives have been bandied back and forth about NPR’s recent and unceremonious firing of conservative commentator Juan Williams. I am personally not a fan of Williams. Even so, his termination was an opportunistic move by an organization looking for an excuse to let him go. However, I think that this incident offers a window into a very...

On Juan Williams and why Black folks really can’t talk about race

October 29th, 2010 | Featured, Talk About Race | Read More

A Black “Yalie” is still Black

When are degrees from Harvard, Yale and Oxford not enough to prove that you like books? When you are also black, like me. That was the first lesson I learned a few days ago when I was the victim of racial profiling at the law school where I teach. My faculty photo identification was not enough for the...

October 29th, 2010 | Featured, Talk About Race | Read More

The politics of being “Un-American”

I was a named for my grandmother, Josephine, a fishing, church going, sharecropping, big bodied and spirited woman. She, in many ways, signifies what it means to be American- marrying as a young woman, raising a family in the rural south and moving from being a tenant on someone else’s farm to...

October 27th, 2010 | African Americans, Featured | Read More

See no race, see no gay

What proponents of a gay-blind approach to bullying in the Schools can Learn from Race Relations Co-written with Nestor L. Lopez-Duran PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, Pssst…… Refusing to acknowledge differences won’t make them go away. Over the...

October 27th, 2010 | Featured, US | Read More

Does focusing on individual change distract from fighting structural racism?

I’m horribly late to the whole “No Wedding No Womb” thing, but I figured it’s about time to give it a few words. If you’ve missed it, “No Wedding No Womb” (#NWNW on Twitter) is essentially a “don’t have kids out of wedlock” movement started...

October 27th, 2010 | African Americans, Racial Equity, Talk About Race, Women | Read More

Why I don’t want to go back

By Meridith E. Rode, Ph.D., University of District of Columbia, When I hear the cries for “going back to the real America” or “taking the country back” I wonder where back is and how far away it is from now. I fear “back” is white reveries of a mythical past which was in reality racist and...

October 25th, 2010 | African Americans, Featured, Talk About Race | Read More

Family values and journalism shaped ACLU of Arizona director’s life, leadership

Alessandra Soler-Meetze, director of the ACLU of Arizona, talks about her beginnings in journalism, her family influences, and her transition from a reporter’s job with a major daily to becoming the leader of an strategic affiliate of the national civil liberties organization. Phoenix, Arizona...

October 25th, 2010 | Featured, Immigration, Latinos, Organizing Latino Immigrants for Social Justice, US | Read More

Socialism? What a joke!

The Rich Are Winning the US Class War: Facts Show Rich Getting Richer, Everyone Else Poorer Socialism? What a Joke! The rich and their paid false prophets are doing a bang up job deceiving the poor and middle class. They have convinced many that an evil socialism is alive in the land and it is ...

October 25th, 2010 | Featured, Politics, Racial Equity | Read More

“Cesar’s Last Fast”: An Interview with Producer/Director Richard Ray Perez

Richard Ray Perez produced and directed the seminal political documentary Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, which The Los Angeles Times called “a riveting story about the undermining of democracy in America.” Also, Perez executive produced the multi-platform documentary series,...

October 21st, 2010 | Featured, Latinos, Politics | Read More

A “war on drugs” or a war on people of color?

When the head of the California division of the NAACP spoke out in support of that state’s Proposition 19 this summer, there seemed to be an equal amount of immediate praise and backlash. Alice Huffman labeled the drug war as a “civil rights issue” getting attention both on a state and national...

October 21st, 2010 | Criminal Justice, Featured | Read More

Honduras: crisis and progress

Today, October 21, the democratic resistance in Honduras will celebrate Artists in Resistance Day. This event contrasts directly with today’s official recognition of Honduras Armed Forces day. The resistance, which is working for a truly democratic Honduras, renamed the day and created an...

October 21st, 2010 | Featured, World | Read More

What exactly does it take to get fired?

I think many of us were relieved to see Rick Sanchez fired so quickly after his blatantly anti-Semitic remarks. Frankly, he couldn’t have been let go any faster save his showing up on air with a Hitler mustache which, though inappropriate, would have been quite memorable. But where was the outrage...

October 18th, 2010 | Talk About Race | Read More

Reconciling by dancing to the beat of many drums

With 1,200 dancers filling the floor of the Rapid City Convention Center and another 5,000 packing the bleachers, the beat of the drums echoing to the rafters and the crackling reports of the rifles toted by the military veterans of many Nations, Saturday night at the 24th Annual He Sapa Wacipi Na Oskate...

October 11th, 2010 | American Indians, Featured | Read More

Nine months after the quake, a million Haitians slowly dying

“If it gets any worse,” said Wilda, a homeless Haitian mother, “we’re not going to survive.” Mothers and grandmothers surrounding her nodded solemnly. We are in a broiling “tent” with a group of women trying to raise their families in a public park. Around...

October 11th, 2010 | Featured, Haiti | Read More