Hugh Price was the seventh leader (from 1994 through 2002) of the National Urban League, the civil rights organization founded in 1910 to help African American migrants assimilate into urban life, to provide opportunities for urban migrants, and to eliminate segregation in our nation. Price, an attorney, activist, writer, and foundation executive was well-suited for that work, for which he may be best known, but Urban League work is only part of his legacy. Price is scheduled to share his reflective autobiography “This African American Life” (Blair, 2017) during the National Urban League convention that began yesterday, July 26, in St. Louis. I’m sure that many of his colleagues will enjoy his reflections, much as I did, when I read his book.
Category: Opinion
Practical Politics
In an apparent, though perhaps unintended, attempt to drive the U.S.A.’s reputation downwards, the Donald Trump administration is doing spectacularly well. A few weeks ago, this column identified the rapid decline of this country’s international reputation viz-a-viz the recent Pew International Survey. This week, another reliable international study, continued reporting on that trend.
Is there no decency?
During the 2016 presidential campaign, our 45th president once promised that he would be “so presidential that it will be boring.” If only.
Instead, he has managed to irk even his Republican allies by wallowing in the muck of name-calling, yet again, belittling a woman for her looks. Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, “45” tweeted, was still “bleeding from her facelift” when he saw her during the New Year’s holiday. He also disparaged Brzezinski’s intelligence and poked fun at her co-host Joe Scarborough. Dozens of Republicans, including leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), have scolded the president on his language in the June 29 tweets. Some have used terms like “civility” and “decency” to distance themselves from his comments.
Practical Politics
As is very well known by now, the African Union, the preeminent continental African organization dedicated to African unification into a Union of African States, is very deeply involved in its drive to succeed.
Practical Politics
In a new, quiet move that may indicate that all congressional Republicans have not become dope fiends to the Trump kool-aid, Rep. Barbara J. Lee’s long-introduced amendment to nullify the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, was passed by the House Appropriations Committee a few days ago. The move surprised many, many people, including the redoubtable Rep. Lee.
Practical Politics
Barack Obama brought cool, intellectual flair and ‘steady-hand” integrity to the office of POTUS. Donald Trump, in his quixotic quest to undo much of Mr. Obama’s successful legacy, has brought a reputation as a relentless liar who is incompetent to be the POTUS. (The New York Times just published a collected list of every public lie President Trump told during his first 40 days in office—averaging three lies per day.) One wonders about the model he is presenting to the impressionable young people of this country as they seek to emulate the president.
On courtesy—Race, gender and the 45 defensive
Courtesy flew out of the window in Washington parlance a long time ago. The minute a deranged congressman stood up and hollered, “you lie” at a sitting president (this was South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson yelling at former President Barack Obama), we knew that courtesy had taken a vacation.
Practical Politics
The business of being Black in America, and in this world, has always been difficult. Too much of it has continued to be based, quite simply, on the fact that merely being born Black made one dangerous, an outsider, the “other,” or a problem.
To protect their own ‘bizness,’ whatever that was, White folks and others have spent an inordinate amount of time consistently passing anti-Black legislation, routinely directing police departments to cull and kill, and maintaining education systems that promoted the belief that White folks’ ‘bizness’ and Black folks’ ‘bizness,’ while they might sometimes intertwine, were, fundamentally different.
Practical Politics
Try as we might, it is increasingly harder to look at the daily shenanigans of President Trump and his team of strange bedfellows as merely “White folks’ troubles.” After all, as the saying goes, when White folks sneeze, Black folks get pneumonia.
But really, how is all this craziness really affecting our lives? Does it help or hurt us in the job market? Is it negatively affecting us in high school graduation rates and university education? Is it really affecting the quality of Black lives one way or the other? The best answer to those questions is probably in the short run, no. The longer the craziness lasts, however, the more in danger Black folks will be. And that’s a fact.
‘Devoid’ at Bethune Cookman University: We must be the Resistance
I could not be more proud of the students at Bethune Cookman University than if I had raised them myself. Responding to the university’s very late selection of Betsy DeVos (hereafter referred to as DeVoid, as she is devoid of good sense, history, literacy, and even courtesy) for the spring commencement speaker, graduating seniors chose to turn their back on a woman who described HBCUs as “pioneers of school choice.” Their repudiation of her very right to be present was well coordinated.
