by Guest Contributor Aymar Jean Christian, originally published at Televisual

Get ready for reason #573 why The Wire was the best television show of the aughts. In the wake of Scott Brown’s upset in the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate, I’ve been thinking a lot about the cycle of politics. I’ve been a pretty [...]

by Latoya Peterson

Over the weekend, the news broke that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made some ill-advised comments during the campaign in 2008:
Reid apologized to Obama and a handful of black political leaders after a new book reported that he was favorably impressed by Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and, in a private conversation, [...]

by Latoya Peterson
Oh brother.  Via Andrew Sullivan, there’s a new political ad out with an obnoxiously familiar message:

The video features various people saying “I guess I’m a racist” and puts up a statistic from the Rassumen reports, stating that 12% of voters believe that opponents of Barack Obama’s health care plan are racist.  This poll [...]

By Guest Contributor G.D., originally published at PostBourgie

In a post called “Penny-Pinching Jews and South Carolina Republicans,” Jeff Goldberg points to an editorial by two South Carolina Republicans defending Sen. Jim DeMint’s opposition to opening the federal spigot for his state.
Recently your newspaper published a letter from state Rep. Bakari Sellers attacking U.S. Sen. Jim [...]

by Guest Contributor (and frequent commenter) Atlasien

It’s all over the news lately: an elaborate sting operation by conservative activists.  A man and a woman go into an ACORN office, and ask about how to get affordable housing and file taxes properly.  The woman says she’s a sex worker.  The ACORN representatives give a variety of [...]

by Latoya Peterson
Over the weekend, I received the following email from Green For All:
Late last night, Van Jones resigned from his position with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Many of us are left with pain and anger after seeing a leader of integrity, vision, and commitment targeted by hateful personal attacks. [...]

by Latoya Peterson

So here I was, blissfully disconnected from politics for the week, working on upcoming content for September, when Anna from Jezebel emails me this:
The fine Real Americans at the Free Republic have found Obama’s achilles heel: his Long Dark Staff of White Insecurity.
hoosiermama:
The only other [...]

by Guest Contributor (and regular commenter) Atlasien
UPDATE: There is a guy with a gun outside of Obama’s town hall. This shit is getting ridiculous. Gawker has details:
MSNBC just aired video of a man with a pistol strapped to his leg waiting for Barack Obama to arrive at a townhall in New Hampshire.
The man [...]

By Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at post pomo nuyorican homo

Reuters recently published a pieced entitled “Reggaeton fever shakes up Cuba’s culture” the article cites an now infamous (in reggaeton circles anyway) quote by Juventud Rebelde that calls reggaeton a “reflection of ‘neoliberal thinking’.”
I think the development and growth of reggaeton in Cuba has [...]

by Latoya Peterson

To understand civil rights, you must understand how it feels…to be trapped in someone else’s stereotype.” – Deval Patrick
During the year of 2008, people loved to talk about change, normally as a positive outcome righting a wrong or correcting a historical slight.
However, change never comes easily. Friction always occurs between the [...]

by Guest Contributor Mimi, originally published at Threadbared

Because this is a fashion plus politics blog, I want to post some very brief thoughts about the protests rocking Iran after what some observers are calling a fraudulent election, reinstalling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against his main opposition, moderate reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi. (For news about the election [...]

By Guest Contributor Catherine, originally posted at Hyphen Blog

The New York Times commemorated President Obama’s 100th day in office last week with some optimistic reportage of race relations in the United States. Citing a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, the article asserted that Obama is positively influencing public perception of race relations, stating that
Two-thirds [...]

by Latoya Peterson
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Floor is open commenters.
Feel free to discuss the GOP, Bobby Jindal’s speech, Obama’s address or The Word segment posted above.

by Latoya Peterson

So, Michael Steele was elected Chairman of the GOP.
The Republican Party chose the first black national chairman in its history Friday, just shy of three months after the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president. The choice marked no less than “the dawn of a new party,” declared the new GOP [...]

Excerpted by Latoya Peterson

I would like to congratulate Barack Obama on ascending to the pinnacle of American politics and public stature. Now, a friend asked if I was watching the parade for the new president. I told him “sentimentality and symbolism are not my favorite things, so I don’t enjoy watching them on full blast.” [...]