‘No More Excuses’ in the Age of Obama

By Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Everywhere I turn these days I keep seeing or hearing the words, “No More Excuses.” From black self-help book titles to black pundits on CNN, these three words have become the mantra of post-racialism in the Age of President Obama. Whether intended or not, the mantra fuels the belief that because of individual black achievements, we have finally reached the promised land of a color-blind, equal-opportunity America.

Mental Health Parity 2010

By Janet Singleton
As of January 1, 2010, the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act will mandate that insurance coverage for mental health be comparable to that for other medical interventions, for group plans of companies employing 50 or more. What it means, for those who are sheltered beneath its modest umbrella, is that reimbursements, number of visits, annual and lifetime caps, co-payments, and any out-of-pocket costs for psychotherapy and related medications should be in line with, for example, treatment for diabetes.

Post-Racial? Not Yet

By The Editors
John Payton, speaking at one of the nation’s most historic black institutions of higher learning, takes on the challenging question – and assertion – President Obama’s election has inevitably raised: Does that mean the United States of America has become a “post-racial” society?

Fighting for Clean Water in Inner-City Schools

By Makani Themba-Nixon
Many children of color are trapped in underfunded schools where parents must fight for the most basic of needs: lighting, bathroom doors, books and even water.

Yes, water.

A Cause for Dissent: The Death Penalty’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment

By Jin Hee Lee, Vincent Southerland and Christina Swarns
Dissenting opinions — offered not by liberal advocates but by moderate, if not conservative, law-and-order judges — stand as a strong rebuke to the presumed effectiveness of the death penalty system. And they also confirm longstanding concerns about how abuses of power, under-resourced defense counsel, and racial bias undermine both the accuracy and judiciousness of death penalty convictions.

Remembering Constance Baker Motley: Trailblazer for Freedom

By Lee A. Daniels
For nearly two decades in the middle of the twentieth century, against daunting odds and the ever-present threat of lethal violence, she helped carry the torch of freedom into places where tyranny reigned. Later, she proved her remarkable commitment to public service could work to equally great effect in the arenas of politics, and the federal judiciary. Her name was Constance Baker Motley, and she was one of America’s great public citizens.

Cashed Out: Joblessness Among Black and Latino Women

By C. Nicole Mason
Recent reports on the recession continue to highlight the disproportionate impact of the downturn on men in comparison to women with regard to job loss and unemployment. However, black and Latino women know that when it comes to unemployment, finding a decent job that pays well has as much to do with race, as it has to do with gender.

Berkeley School Diversity Lauded as National Model

By TaRessa Stovall
Due to an innovative diversity effort that emphasizes where students come from rather than the color of their skin, most Berkeley, California, elementary schools are so well-integrated they may serve as a model for other schools around the nation.

Allegorical Landmines: Aliens & Race in ‘District 9′

By Tananarive Due
As a speculative fiction author who has been to Soweto, and who shouted myself hoarse during college anti-apartheid rallies, I was electrified by the trailer’s gritty, documentary-style sequences of a spacecraft hovering over Johannesburg… But a debate among some filmgoers about the depiction of District 9’s black characters is an example of how allegory can be rife with landmines.

Sotomayor Confirmed; Historic Day in the Capitol

By The Editors
On Thursday, August 6, the Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whose arc of achievements embodies one of the most cherished facets of the American Dream, as the newest Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The Long, Bitter History of Predatory Lending against African Americans

By Beryl Satter
In the 1950s, speculators combed white neighborhoods, purchasing property from whites and then reselling them to blacks—at double to quadruple market value. Even worse, they sold these overpriced properties “on contract,” that is, on the installment plan. Black buyers made a down payment and were responsible for taxes, insurance, maintenance, and interest, but could lose the property if they missed even one payment. They were forced to accept such brutal terms, since in Chicago as nationally, most banks refused to loan to them; if they wanted to buy at all, they had to buy from speculators.

Detroit’s Black Middle Class Plans to Ride out the City’s “Economic Tsunami”

By Oralandar Brand-Williams
The latest mantra on the lips of folks in Michigan and Motor City is, once again, “The last one out please turn out the lights.”

Supreme Court Ruling Retains Core Provision of the Voting Rights Act

By The Editors
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by seven other Justices, the Court declared that “the historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable.”

Toward a New View of Muslim Women

By Nura Sediqe
President Obama’s words in his June 4 address in Cairo, Egypt have brought a refreshing change in the rhetoric that is commonly utilized when discussing women and Islam. They were only a few simple lines in a long and extensive speech addressing a variety of pressing policy issues, but for Muslim women like myself, there was a pause….while we were all thinking, “Did he really just say that?”

Always Seeking Perfection: John Hope Franklin, 1915 – 2009

By Lee A. Daniels
The lives of John Hope Franklin, long acclaimed as one of America’s greatest historians, and his wife and most important supporter, Aurelia, were celebrated June 11 in a ceremony at Duke University that seemed to match their character: elegant but unpretentious, spare of words but full of substantive implication, buoyed by humanizing humor, and simultaneously majestic and intimate.

Sentencing Disparity: Crack Cocaine v Powder Cocaine

By The Editors
The current federal law mandates far more severe sentences for low-level offenses involving crack cocaine than powder cocaine, even though the former is no more addictive or dangerous than the latter.

36 Children of Color Dead in Chicago

By Stacey Patton
All 36 of these schoolchildren, mostly black and a few Latinos, were killed in the streets of Chicago during the past nine months.  They were shot, stabbed, beaten with bats, kicked to death, burned and run over by cars.

Bitter Truths: Why Are Working Class White People So Angry?

By Deborah Rudacille
At the colossal Sparrows Point steelworks on the outer shores of Baltimore harbor, founded in 1887, black men long fed the sweltering ovens and furnaces while white men ran the finishing mills that produced gleaming coils of steel, tin, nails, wire and pipe. Three generations of my father’s family labored on Sparrows Point and I grew up in a nearby white working class community that owed much of its post-war prosperity to Bethlehem Steel.

America On Lockdown: New Facts About America’s Prisons & Prisoners

By Stacey Patton
A recent report from The Sentencing Project indicates the United States has only five percent of the world’s population, yet it holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.

A Long Way From Home

By Damon Hewitt
A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, native son and R&B singer Roi Anthony released a song entitled “A Long Way From Home.” Part mournful and part hopeful, the song captured the burdened yet resilient spirit of New Orleanians displaced by the storm. Sadly, over three years after Katrina, his lyrics continue to ring true.