Dr. Julianne Malveaux

Congress is on fire to balance the federal budget, and they don’t care who they take as prisoners in the process. There are at least two proposals to freeze federal salaries for yet another year (they have been frozen since 2011), and to continue to demonize federal workers as do-nothing folks who don’t need raises. […]

In April the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent. In May it rose, just a tiny bit, to 8.2 percent. A tenth of a percentage point does not seem like a big deal. Indeed, the Department of Labor descries the unemployment rate as “essentially unchanged”. And compared to this time last year, when the rate was […]

When you leave the United States, you’ll often find “cultural tourism”, or the opportunity to enjoy a culture and also purchase trinkets or more substantial items in markets around the world. In Ghana, we look for kente cloth, statues, and masks. In other African countries, the offerings are often similar, but Zimbabwe is known for […]

One hundred and nine Bennett College students shook my hand and received their diplomas on Saturday, May 5. With big smiles and a little swagger, they went through the time-honored ceremonies of baccalaureate and commencement. And, we were blessed to have phenomenal friends join us. Rev. Al Sharpton was our baccalaureate speaker, and the Hon. Alexis Herman was our graduation speaker.

President Barack Obama hit a home run when he traveled to three colleges last week, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Iowa.

When Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life”, Ann Romney behaved as if she had just hit the lottery.  She smugly made the media rounds talking about how hard it was for her to raise her five sons.  And she’s right.  Stay at home moms work extremely hard to cook, clean, run a shuttle for their children and their various activities, participate in school activities like “Room Mom” and “Cookie Mom”.

Now that former Senator Rick Santorum has withdrawn from the Republican race for nomination, it is a foregone conclusion that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.  To be sure, he still has to deal with the nuisance factor of Newt Gingrich, whose lack of money has not only torpedoed his campaign, but also one of his “think” tanks.

Dimitris Christoulas was a retired pharmacist whose neighbors said had enormous dignity.  At 77 years old, he looked forward to a comfortable old age.  He had saved during his 35-year career and did not expect government to, at all, be involved in his pension.

I have two nephews that I love with an amazing passion. Anyi, 28, is a Los Angeles based comedian, who kinda looks like me and acts like me. He is my absolute escort of choice when I am in Southern California. Armand, 25, is an Oakland-based aspiring writer, and a 2008 graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz. Both of these young men are well over 6’3″, but neither carries any extra weight. Both of them wear hoodies.

Forty years ago this month, ten thousand African Americans thronged to Gary, Indiana for the first National Black Political Convention.  They gathered to develop a black agenda, and to influence 1972 presidential politics.  One of the things on the agenda was the development of an independent black political party and to explore the notion of independent black politics.