by Special Correspondent Jessica Yee
Like millions of people all over the world, I’m ecstatic, over-the-moon inspired by Obama’s win. If for no other reason (and all the others too in which we share the same opinion, like abortion for example) than his win is actually a good thing for the people in my community. Yes […]

by Latoya Peterson

In this month’s issue of Vibe, Barack Obama receives a formal endorsement from the magazine. Danyel Smith’s Editor’s Letter is an impassioned plea to get involved and help push Barack all the way into the White House. She writes:
We value freedom and aspire to be better than we are, and to […]

by Guest Contributor M.Dot, originally published at Model Minority

Two major things happened in Black television in the last week or so.
Rap City was canceled, TRL was canceled and VH1 presented the 100 best songs in Hip Hop.
All of these are interesting because they relate to hip hop. I remember when I first learned that 106 […]

by Guest Contributor Jessica Yee
Last year, a friend of mine told me that actress Juliette Lewis started up a band and that their sound was seriously a rockin’.
I was like “Really? Cool!” since I’d always appreciated the versatility Lewis demonstrated in her acting craft with movies like “The Other Sister,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” […]

by Latoya Peterson, originally published at Feministe

In the first 45 seconds of the trailer for Clueless, Cher Horowitz (played by Alicia Silverstone) gives one of the best rebuttals I have ever heard to opponents of providing asylum on our shores for oppressed people.
Yes, I’m serious.
Let’s reexamine the language (excerpted from Paul’s Ultimate Clueless Script):
SCENE IV […]

by Guest Contributor Tariq Nelson, originally published at TariqNelson.com

Presidential Vice-Presidential Candidate Governor Palin and former Presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani lampooned community organizers and the important work they do in their communities. Are they so out of touch that they do not realize that teachers, PTA members, football coaches and non-profit volunteers also have “actual responsibilities” […]

by Guest Contributor Joanna Eng, originally published at DJ Jojo

I heard from Sepia Mutiny’s post about M.I.A. getting “dissed” by DeLon, a new rapper of Sri Lankan descent. DeLon took M.I.A.’s most popular song, “Paper Planes,” called out her politics and support of the Tamil Tigers, and shows the “terrorist” side of that group. (You […]

Renee dropped me an email to forward this message from Incite! Women of Color Against Violence:

Dear INCITE! friends and supporters,
On the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government criminal negligence and assaults on the low income […]

by Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo
People who know me know that few things on this planet irk to the extent that PETA does. The tactics that PETA deploy to get their point across are dubious at best and some are downright deplorable. I wrote off PETA after a campaign […]

by Guest Contributor Black Canseco

I grew up in the inner cities of Chicago—places where buses hate to stop, and cabs hate to come. My parents worked hard. Most of our neighbors worked hard. Some people tried. Some people just gave up. Others gave up while they tried and vice versa.
When there was violence, we cried […]

by Special Correspondent Nadra Kareem

As the U.S. launched its specious war on terrorism, George Bush wrangled away another presidential election, a stunned nation took in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and miraculously a biracial senator from Illinois rose to prominence, the absence of one of the music scene’s most influential voices has been sorely missed. […]

by Guest Contributor Average Bro, originally published on AverageBro.com

Not that anyone’s really noticed, but the NAACP’s been asleep at the wheel since they ran off their most recent President, Bruce Gordon over a year ago. This weekend, the organization quietly introduced their new President, the oddly named Carlos Solis[1] Ben Jealous.
A 35-year-old human rights […]

by Guest Contributor Sam

Education, information, and communication are important issues in our collective struggle for justice. People must first become aware of injustices before they can be dedicated to fighting inequalities like racism and sexism, and educating folks about the realities that may have escaped them in school is an important first step.
Education and […]

by Latoya Peterson

Yesterday’s conversation on the article in the Nation has an interesting set of comments revolving around the use of the term “the oppression olympics.”
In our comments policy on Racialicious, we state:

Let’s avoid oppression olympics please. I’m not saying it’s never something to be discussed, but generally speaking, bickering over who has it worse […]

by Latoya Peterson

This post has been continued from part 1.
(Before I get into this next part, let me address something from part one. When I was writing about allies, I specifically was thinking about people who self-identified as women of color allies and who dropped the ball. But as commenter Kali pointed out, things […]