Makes Me Want To Holla

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.
A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.
If his mother had been insured.
If his family had not lost its Medicaid.
If Medicaid dentists weren’t so hard to find.
If his mother hadn’t been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.
By the time Deamonte’s [...]

I’m Not Homo-phobic; I’m Chick-o-Centric

By Doug Giles.

“I think I speak for most heterosexual males when I say I’m not homophobic but chick-o-centric. Let’s keep it positive, okay? It’s not that we dislike you, the gay guy; it’s just that we really like girls. It seems no matter how long we compliantly spend in rehab undergoing the most stringent psychotherapy [...]

Tension

A troubled and depressed Martin Luther King looks over a crowd. (196 As I (J) get older, and my life path intertwines with the paths of more and more people, I find myself having tension or conflicts with an increasing amount of people. It’s disconcerting, not only because I feel that I [...]

Quote of the Day

“If I use a dollar to buy food, then tomorrow I have nothing. If I use a dollar to buy a bullet, then I can eat every day.”
Mogadishu Resident

The Widening Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation’s “haves” and “have-nots” continues to widen.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 [...]

How Can We Have Barack Obama and Katrina in the Same Country?

I (J) had an interesting conversation with a white friend of mine about the ascendancy of Barack Obama, and what Obama’s prominence means for race relations in America. In short, how can we have such a large and seemingly permanent black underclass, but also have a black man with a serious chance of becoming President [...]

Who Should Pay for the Elderly and the Poor?

Many of us in the “Sandwich Generation” are caring for elderly parents as well as children. How should America, particularly the government, deal with the growing elderly population?
“The table shows the rise of the American welfare state. In 1956, defense dominated the budget; the Cold War buildup was in full swing. The welfare state, [...]

Booker T.: House Negro or Hero? (Commentary by John Henrik Clarke)

The Assault on Black Sanity blog highlights an essay by John Henrik Clark on Booker T. Washington’s famous 1895 Atlanta Exposition Speech.

“Although Booker T. Washington’s speech set off debates among people of that time, it was misunderstood then and it is misunderstood now. The reason it was misunderstood was that this speech was a speech [...]

The Death of an HBCU

A few years ago we watched as Morris Brown lost its accreditation amid financial scandal and neglect. Now the school is barely that with less that 66 students and its future uncertain. Now The only historically black college in my hometown of Memphis, LeMoyne-Owen College is on death’s door.
LeMoyne-Owen needs about $3 million [...]

Usher, Engaged

“Usher is engaged to his stylist girlfriend, Tameka Foster, a source confirms to PEOPLE. The first hint that the two had decided to tie the knot came on Monday, when the R&B singer was at the NAACP Theatre Image Awards in Beverly Hills. Onstage to accept his Spirit Award, he thanked Foster, referring to her [...]