U.S. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn issued the following statement today in response to the State of the Union address: ... read more »

Jones said voting rights had been under attack since the 2013 Shelby V. Holder decision, which eliminated a lot of voter protections. “It’s not the same as the old Jim Crow laws, but there’s still efforts out there to suppress votes and keep people from having that free access to the booths,” he stated. Jones noted that he’s working to restore “teeth” in the Voting Rights Act but doubts that the current GOP-led Senate and President Trump’s administration would approve. “I don’t see it happening, so it’s all the more important to get out and vote in the 2020 elections.” ... read more »

There have been repeated stories of the repression of science under this administration. Scientists have been informed not to use this word or that word. The suppression of scientific exploration and publication of new research on climate change. This is all being done under the cover of night. But now we have a story where it is quite public that this administration not only wants to dictate reality, but it wishes to suppress those who contradict them, irrespective of the truth. ... read more »

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s foremost civil rights organization, has announced that Ambassador Patrick Gaspard will be awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal during the NAACP’s 110th Annual Convention taking place in Detroit, Michigan on July 24. ... read more »

California Treasurer Fiona Ma has appointed two prominent African American transportation experts, Mr. Frederick Jordan of San Francisco and Dr. Beverly A. Scott of Albany, to the California High-Speed Rail Authority Peer Review Group. ... read more »

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations issued the following statement after President Trump threatened a “full and complete embargo, together with highest-level sanctions” against Cuba. ... read more »

Those who feel America is a post-racial society tend to be either die-hard conservatives   or so naïve, they might believe there are snow-capped mountains in Florida.  But by any measure, public education, the criminal injustice system, poverty, etc., White privilege and its cohort racism, remain the prime barriers to Blacks receiving actual justice and equality.  ... read more »

Emmy Award-winning Steve James is one of America’s most respected documentarians, working in the field today.  In his new Starz doc-series “America to Me”— a 10-part look at race through the eyes of students, teachers and administrators at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) — an elite, racially diverse public high school in a suburb west of Chicago, he gives all of the subjects the opportunity to let it all “hang out” so to speak.   ... read more »

“It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law.” — Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 531 U.S. 98, Bush v. Gore [Dissent], December 12, 2000 ... read more »

If you could choose one artist to embody the African American experience of the 20th century, it would have to be the incomparable Miss Aretha Franklin. ... read more »

A few years ago, his Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, studied school discipline data and came to a troubling conclusion: African American students in the 2011-12 school year had been suspended or expelled at a rate three times higher than White students. ... read more »

The original goal of "net neutrality" was that internet service providers and governments would treat all data on the internet equally and not discriminate or charge differently based on the user, services, website, application, or device – in other words, it would provide an open internet. ... read more »

Let’s stop spending volumes of money on prisons ... read more »

Barack Obama’s presidency will be documented ad infinitum. However, Los Angeles is fortunate to have Erin Aubry Kaplan’s new book, I Heart Obama, a solid jumpstart on what is certain to be a mammoth field of chroniclers. ... read more »

President Obama might be better advised to improve his legacy by taking bold actions in these last days of his presidency ... read more »