African Americans

Flint Photo Exhibit Highlights One of America’s Most Devastating Crises

The Editors

Citing Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison’s 1948 collaboration Harlem is Nowhere as an influence, Frazier utilized mass media as an outlet to reach a broad audience, publishing her images of Flint in conjunction with a special feature on the water crisis in Elle magazine in September 2016. Like Parks, Frazier uses the cameras as a weapon and agent of social change. The exhibition is part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Exhibition Series, which addresses issues of race, diversity, social justice, and civil rights.

Note to the NFL: Hire Colin Kaepernick

Jaime C. Harris

It’s the shut up and just play ball vitriol of bigots and racists that has kept the 31-year-old Kaepernick off of every one of the league’s 32-team rosters for two seasons and counting. Last Thursday, Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, who is African-American, voiced his position on the issue, saying, “I have grave concerns about the way that [Kaepernick] has been treated.”

GOP Voter Suppression and the Threat to Democrats

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Voter suppression is a well-documented fact of life in American politics. The GOP has welded it as a potent weapon to assure its continued domination of American politics. The even more terrifying reality is that voter suppression has the force of law behind it. Kemp in Georgia was the crudest example of that. As secretary of state, he could legally make the call about which votes could and couldn’t be counted. The lawsuits that were filed against his blatant voter suppression were at best stopgap efforts to blunt some of the damage.

The Pride of Black Lives Matter

Angelo Franco

Exit polls showed that as many as 70 percent of African-American Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8. More in-depth studies have since shown that religion, more so than race, was a better indicative of constituents voting for or against the legislation; the study stipulated that African-Americans, being the most religious group in California, accounted for approximately 58 percent of the votes in favor of Proposition 8, while Latin-Americans almost paralleled that with 59 percent voting in favor of it. 

African-American Retirees: North Carolina's 'Reverse' Migration

Leoneda Inge

The mass exodus of millions of African Americans from the rural south to large urban areas across the United States was nothing more than great. During this Great Migration, almost half of the black adults in North Carolina left the state, most of them settling in and around New York. Now, those who left are steadily returning home to North Carolina to retire in a Great "Reverse" Migration.

Soul Food: Cultural Staple or Disease Trap?

Penny Dickerson

Pork parts were cooked down for hours and seasoned with salt, onion and garlic. Chicken and fish were deep-fried in vegetable oil, and collard-green leaves as big as elephant ears were cleaned, cut and seasoned with smoked meats. Yams were candied with generous amounts of brown sugar and butter, while macaroni and cheese was prepared with abundant portions of eggs and butter. 

The Rise of Hate Groups in the Trump Era

Ed Diokno

A year ago, the headline of the report on hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center read “Hate Groups on the Rise.” This year’s report concludes that hate groups have risen for the second year in a row. The rise in the number of hate groups in the U.S. corresponds with the radical right getting emboldened by the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to the SPLC’s annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations​.

Attention Trump: Meet the Real Forgotten Americans

Leonard Steinhorn

If Trump really wants to speak for forgotten Americans, he would travel to the Mississippi Delta and the rural Black Belt of the American South, where conditions are so wretched and dire that even a struggling Rust Belt factory town might seem like a bountiful paradise of opportunity and wealth. Campaign events tell the real story of who’s forgotten and who isn’t, and the verdict is clear: White working-class voters in the Rust Belt are far from forgotten.

How African-Americans Are Left Out of the Marijuana Boom

Allison Keyes

Earlier this month, the Natalie M. LaPrade Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission awarded stage-one license preapprovals to 15 growers and 15 processors. None of the companies on tap for what are likely to be lucrative growing licenses is led by African Americans. “I think small guys were definitely not welcome to this game,” says Zulu, who says his primary reason for selling marijuana is to help senior citizens like his mother and others find relief from the pain of arthritis, eczema and other ailments. 

Trump Is No Stranger to Law-and-Order Baiting

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

When GOP presidential contender Donald Trump shouts that he’s the “law-and-order candidate,” he is pilfering the line that George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton worked to death during their White House bids. The law-and-order line is heavy with racially coded images of rampant black crime, and this is a surefire way to pander to fearful suburban whites.

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