The U.S. is #1! In incarcerations, that is. A few days ago the Pew Center for on the States released a study showing that the incarceration rate is at an all time high. From the Washington Post article:
With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second. [Source: WaPo]
You’ve probably already guessed that the numbers for black Americans are much worse. Among black men between the ages of 20 and 34, the study found that 1 in 9 were behind bars. [Read more →]
The week was full of foolishness. Here’s two moments that stood out as the absolute worst for me.
#1: Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones responding to the picture put out of Obama in an African garb where she says that we shouldn’t feel shame about Obama wearing “his native clothing–the clothing of his country.”
Nader has experienced a lot of hate in his day. Now that he’s running again there will be much more coming at him. The hate carried over towards him from 2000 is captured perfectly in Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s argument:
Ralph Nader… has some evil lying on his doorstep. The arrogant, destructive, self-aggrandizing hubris that marks both Nader and his supporters is directly responsible for President Bush’s occupation of the White House. For you to choose Nader is to cast a vote for McCain and you know it. It is irresponsible to hide behind some kind of intellectual justification forcasting a vote for a candidate that is guaranteed to lose, and thereby increase the vote share for a potentially dangerous war-monger. [Read more →]
Whether you support Obama or Clinton, it’s always good to be up on the spin and inaccuracies coming from both of them. Here’s some facts from FactCheck.org on Thursday’s debate.
Summary from FactCheck.org (click here for full analysis)
The most recent Obama-Clinton debate drew little blood, but we noted a few factual claims that could use correcting or clarifying:
Clinton wrongly implied that Obama had little or no accomplishments to his credit. [Read more →]
Chris Matthews dropped some major blows on Senator Watson from TX last night—completely embarrassing the man. In general, I like Matthews, but he does have a tendency to fly off the handle and humiliate his guests at times (sometimes appropriately, sometimes not). Last night, while watching the election results on MSNBC with Matthews and Keith Olbermann here’s what caught my attention:
What’s been going on with me lately? Have I entered Bizarro World or what? First, I praise Brother Slickback, a man I’m almost always critical of. Now I’m about to bash my man Tavis who I’ve been behind for years. I feel like John Lewis. Am I turning into a flip-flopper?
Nah… It’s all in the spirit of giving respect when respect is due and calling whackness for what it is irrespective of the individual and my overall sentiments towards them. And this time I have to call a foul on Tavis.
He’s all worked up over the upcoming State of the Black Union meeting. [Read more →]
A story in Friday’s New York Times that said U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) was going to back Barack Obama for president is inaccurate, a spokeswoman for the former civil rights leader told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this morning. [Read more →]
MILWAUKEE — Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.
“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, [Read more →]
Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan took a call from a listener who stated that when listening to Barack Obama speak, “it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they’d come to their feet and scream and yell.” Sullivan then played a “side-by-side comparison” of a Hitler speech and an Obama speech. Sullivan mimicked the crowd during both speeches, yelling, “Yay! Yay!”
When a later caller complained that Sullivan was “denigrating” Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn’t play it again, then begged: “Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won’t do it again. … Until the next time.”[Read more →]
We’ve had some discussion on this topic in the earlier “sellout” post and here is part 2. Again, a piece by McWhorter touching on the issue of the “fluidity and complexity” of cultural definitions. This time he attempts to put some parameters on the definition:
What is black culture? Definitions will differ. But we can’t treat the definition as so “fluid” that it isn’t a definition at all. I will toss out a few parameters of what “black” is:
The U.S. is #1! In incarcerations, that is. A few days ago the Pew Center for on the States released a study showing that the incarceration rate is at an all time high. From the Washington Post article:
