Not an Urban Queen: Rants of a Bibliophile
I eagerly spend time in bookstores. They are part of my life, real books, even though my family purchased the Kindle Fire for me for Christmas, there is something about real books. The day all the kids were back in their respective classroom, I found myself at the mall, at the bookstore, [...]
‘We Must Never Give Up!’
The United States Senate’s failure to pass common sense gun safety measures — the Manchin-Toomey Amendment to expand background checks to keep guns away from underage or dangerous people, and amendments to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines designed only to kill as many human beings as possible — is a moral [...]
Lessons: Boston and the Human Spirit
At the Huffington Post, Binta Niambi Brown shares excerpts from her correspondence to friends this week that reveal reasons to rejoice in humanity’s endurance. Some have said this week that we are forever changed — that Boston will never be the same again. Others have countered that saying, we will recover, that we are [...]
I Didn’t Give Up on Black Men; They Gave Up on Me
Jai Stone explains at Essence how a long history of rejection led her to have a “come-to-Jesus meeting” with herself on this controversial issue. I’m going to start with an urgent gripe of mine: Every time I turn around, the mating habits of African-American women are being scrutinized. There is always some broken-down bundle of [...]
Rev. Jesse Jackson Says Reparations Should Be Paid for 1963 Church Bombing
BY JESSE JACKSON April 15, 2013 It was terror that shook the nation. On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the basement of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Four little girls, all dressed in white — 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, and 11-year-old Denise McNair — [...]
Iyanla and DMX: Entertainment or Exploitation?
The whole country was talking about the weird back-and-forth between Iyanla Vanzant and the rapper, DMX. It’s clear that the rapper needs help with his personal life, and that drugs have clearly caused him to lose it. But the other thing people are noticing is that it seems that the Oprah Winfrey Network [...]
Letter to Terrible People Who Make Tragedies Worse
Boston deals with aftermath of marathon explosions (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Writing at Ebony, Michael Arceneaux has a few choice words — and some requests — for “Boston Marathon tragedy pimps.” I. When Something Horrible Happens To Other People, Don’t Make It About You and Your Cause Conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin used the [...]
How Obama is wisely navigating Washington
Two weeks ago, President Obama was getting criticism from all sides, with liberals arguing he was squandering an opportunity to pass major gun control legislation and centrists and conservatives casting him as not providing enough leadership on deficit reduction. Nevermind all that. Obama is now not only moving forward on three of his [...]
Race is the elephant in the room in the Gosnell women’s clinic murder trial
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is accused of running a house of horrors. And we can all agree that the crimes for which he is accused are horrific, gruesome and unspeakable. But there is a story behind the story that some are missing in this case, and that is the issue of race. The West Philadelphia [...]
Dr. Julianne Malveaux: When in Doubt, Blame the Dark-Skinned Man
by Dr. Julianne Malveaux I don’t know where CNN’s John King got the information that a suspect in the Boston bombing was “a dark-skinned male”, but beyond apologizing he needs to explain himself. How many sources gave him the false tip? If it was fewer than two, then he violated a basic journalism rule. Who [...]
April 22, 20133 CommentsRead More