** Author’s Note: In my column “IF YOU DON’T LIKE DISPARITIES, TRY EQUALITY” I erroneously restated a comment I heard during a “think tank” at Rodham Institute. I was extremely remiss in not fact checking this statement. In communicating with Howard University, the facts are that of the 120 students admitted in Howard University’s School […]
The student loan burden is reaching crisis proportions. Young Americans are being sad…
Pro-gun activists may have planned to boldly celebrate the fifth anniversary of Richard Heller’s successful gun rights case. However, a murder spree in Santa Monica and George Zimmerman’s murder trial are over-shadowing those plans.
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX When George Orwell wrote the novel 1984, he envisioned a character, a real or imagined “Big Brother” who was a know-all, see-all, omnipotent and elusive presence that intruded into lives because he could. Those who knew about “him” were told that they did not exist, but in many ways, Big Brother may not have existed […]
The April jobs report has been hailed as good news by the nation’s newspapers. But a look under the numbers is more sobering. In Chicago and cities across the country, extreme poverty remains high, and the jobless still haunt our streets. Washington would rather sell optimism. We’ve seen 38 straight months of private-sector jobs growth. The stock market is at record heights. Corporate profits are setting records as a percentage of the economy. Compared with Europe and Japan, the U.S. is doing well. But more than 20 million people are still in need of full-time work. That level of unemployment …
Criminal justice began a new era when the U.S. Supreme Court decided law enforcement could take DNA from arrestees. However, complex consequences await communities of color already reeling from police abuse of stop and frisk practices.
Although the overall unemployment rate still exceeds 7 percent, and the official Black unemployment rate is greater than 13 percent, there are some who insist that there is a robust economic recovery in progress. Indeed, we were declared “post recession” in 2011 based on the definition of recovery as GDP growth for three quarters in […]
When I was at Lafayette Park (across from the White House) recently checking the logistics/arrangements for IBW’s June 17th Day of Direct Action to pressure President Obama to end the War on Drugs and invest in inner-city Black communities, I confess to having been filled with pride thinking about the reality of a Black Family occupying the White House!
When we defiantly declared on the burning battlefields of the Sixties that “liberation is coming from a Black thing”, we meant that it would come from a process and practice that Black people, themselves, self- consciously conceived, constructed and carried out.
When the sequester federal spending cuts forced flight delays because of the furlough of air traffic controllers, the normally deadlocked Congress acted in less than a week to give the Federal Aviation Administration flexibility to avoid the furloughs. The aggravations of business travelers are heard in Washington. But Congress can’t seem to hear the tribulations of the less fortunate: † Chicago hospitals are facing a 2 percent cut in Medicare support, which will leave some seniors with less care. † 125 AIDS-afflicted families will lose their subsidized housing in Chicago because of the sequester. † 460 teachers and teachers aide …
FEDERAL CONTRACTING PROMOTES INEQUALITY! BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX On May 21, I had the opportunity to testify before a Congressional Progressive Caucus, meeting on the fact that federal dollars drive inequality by paying contractors who pay too many of their workers very little. The hearing was driven by a study from Amy Traub and her colleagues at […]
It’s time for each and every Black American to take action by tweeting about, shouting about, and phoning and faxing about the challenge that has been issued by Elder Ron Daniels.