Some are touting ‘The Hate U Give,’ as “the first Black Lives Matter movie.” Red flags should have gone up the moment we learned that Fox, recently acquired by Disney, was behind the film with a massive public relations budget, footing the bill for hundreds of advance screenings with celebrity guests, marketing swag, and heavy media saturation – especially in Black markets.  We might also wonder about the choice to have Audrey Wells, a White screenwriter whose credits include "Under the Tuscan Sun"  and "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," adapt an urban Black novel for the screen. ... read more »

Recent and stunning disclosures of racially-offensive writings by a high-ranking official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has unleashed an escalating barrage of criticisms, including calls for the official to be fired and more probing questions regarding the agency’s commitment to fair lending. ... read more »

The September 20 article by Jennifer Bihm contains a significant inaccuracy in the headline and misleading statements in the article itself. The headline states that poor communities in Los Angeles “experience most fracking.” The fact is that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is not used at all anywhere in Los Angeles County. The term refers to a specific method of oil extraction which is not employed by any oil producers in the Los Angeles region. While oil production remains an important part of LA’s economy, the energy that is produced here is done under the strictest health, environmental and safety regulations in the world. ... read more »

The debates that have unfolded in connection with the campaign to appoint Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court increasingly centered on charges of alleged sexual assault by him against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The attacks on Dr. Ford have come to represent everything that is so blatantly misogynistic about current U.S. society. The political Right has pulled out all of the stops to demean her character. One of the critical ‘arrows’ that is being fired is one that goes like this: why didn’t she come forward sooner? ... read more »

African Americans experience high levels of stress and may be especially likely to experience serious depression ... read more »

“This is a discriminatory state law that is antiquated and almost equates to the laws that discriminated against racial minorities decades ago when they were required to pay a poll tax in order to vote…” — Sheila Jackson Lee ... read more »

As we wait for law, policy and practice to catch up to the public’s savvy and changing mores on policing, Black lives will be saved from this blue menace if civilians adopt a page from the police playbook and invoke their own talismanic chant: “I’m Not Resisting.” ... read more »

The latest data from the Center for American Progress shows that the average salary for an attorney is more than two times that of elementary and middle school educators. The Washington Post reported last week that nearly 1 in 10 hosts who rent out their apartments, homes and spaces on Airbnb are teachers. Low salaries, compared with other college graduates, may inhibit highly-effective professionals from pursuing a career in education; specifically for people of color who currently make up just seven percent of public school teachers. ... read more »

I am so proud of the Freedom Schools scholars who have learned they are following in the footsteps of children and youths who were the foot soldiers and infantry of the Civil Rights Movement. Some of their stories from the Movement are well known: six-year-old Ruby Bridges in New Orleans walked through White mobs to attend school—even praying for those jeering at her; the Little Rock Nine; the four little girls killed in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. Thousands of children were on the frontlines of history. Whether sung or unsung heroes, we owe all of them a debt of gratitude. ... read more »

I am no fan of Omarosa Manigault Newman, the mononymous diva who dominates the airwaves whenever she wants to. Her new book, “Unhinged,” which I won’t read, is billed as a tell-all on “45's” White House and its shenanigans. In making the rounds, “Omierosie” (my nickname for her) has played tapes that seem to corroborate at least some of her allegations about “45.” More importantly, her tapes are evidence that the game captured the hunter. In other words, Omierosie took a page from “45's” book and trusted fewer people than even “45” did. ... read more »

Even as overall graduation rates improve, Black and Hispanic students continue to lag behind that curve. Graduation rates for African American students are 76.4 percentage points—8 percentage points behind the national average—and Latino students are at 79.3 percent. Native American students fare even worse at just 72 percent graduation. Meanwhile, White and Asian students are anywhere from four to six points higher than the national average. ... read more »

If passed, SB 1156 will severely limit the ability of charitable organizations from providing financial assistance to dialysis patients in need. These are the charitable organizations whose financial assistance allows for access to treatment and care for thousands of patients suffering from kidney failure in California, including many minority patients. For these patients, charitable assistance is the sole reason they are able to continue paying for their costly and life-sustaining dialysis treatment. ... read more »

Just over four years ago, on August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was murdered by police officer Darren Wilson. He was shot six times, and might have survived some of the shots, but was fatally wounded when he was shot in the head. Wilson claimed he shot in self-defense, but Michael Brown was unarmed. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch took his time convening a grand jury and announced in November 2014, three months after Brown's murder, that the grand jury voted not to indict Wilson. ... read more »

A new generation of Democrats, such as New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is challenging the party’s establishment, writes Jesse Jackson, and the party’s goal should be to embrace the “moral center.” ... read more »

In a few weeks, the Senate will decide whether a D.C. Circuit Court judge named Brett Kavanaugh should be the nation’s next Supreme Court justice. And from my office window, I can already hear the battle cries. ... read more »