President Obama's announcement of his new plan to stem gun violence is a good start. But it doesn't go nearly far enough. The whole focus on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines as the cornerstones of the agenda is still a compromise to gun owners and the NRA that they won't...

Finally it's over. No more debates, commercials, endless campaign speeches and subsequent news reports. No more talking heads and spinning. No more polls. The only poll that counts was the one from Tuesday night. And thank goodness the best man won. Now that it is over, after a week or...

Well I guess this puts all the talk about a "post-racial America" to rest.

The Associated Press released a report on Saturday that shows a majority of Americans, in fact an increasing number, still harbor prejudice against blacks and Hispanics. 51 percent of all Americans expressed anti-black attitudes,...

As an African-American film director and scriptwriter, I have to say I was incredibly moved by George Lucas' public comments on his latest film, Red Tails. Lucas, who basically changed how sci-fi movies are made with his groundbreaking Star Wars saga, and impacted our pop culture in ways few movies...

This has been a very interesting couple of weeks when it comes to the issue of racism in our country. Herman Cain, the much talked about semi-front runner in the race for the Republican nomination, has garnered a great deal of attention. It is hard to deny that some of...

What an interesting week this has been in terms of ethnic and cultural relations in this country. There was the crazy press conference of Marilyn Davenport, who felt it would be a hoot to send around a photo of the President as a chimpanzee. Additionally, there has been...

It sure does get old being portrayed as the villain in popular culture.

I am referencing the latest in a long line of heavily hyped feature films that jump on the bandwagon that seems to believe the only real Black man is a drug dealing, two-timing, woman-hating, physically abusive...

I can't help but comment on this growing "Islamophobia," or fear of Islam and Muslims, that seems to be a growing problem in this country.

Honestly I didn't even know such a word existed until recently. That's just sad. Not that I didn't know the word existed, but that there...

When Barack Obama became our president, many of us bought into the idea that his victory signaled a "Post-Racial America," or at least an America that was very much past the old way of dividing its citizens along racial and ethnic lines.

We were clearly wrong.

It's clear now that...

I saw this interesting article about all these dating websites, like eHarmony and the like, and how when it comes to dating across cultural lines, very few people, percentage-wise, are electing to consider dating someone that doesn't look like them. I was actually surprised by that to tell you the...

The following quote comes from a man who recently served time at a prison in Texas. He speaks about a film about the Dalai Lama and Buddhism, and the philosophy it maintains for human beings and global problems:

I think that one of the problems of humanity is separateness....

There is no other way to say this but to put it all on the table. Some white people have simply lost their minds because they are besides themselves trying to figure out how in the world they slipped up and let an African-American man in the White House, as...

In this supposed "Post Racial" age of Obama you would think that the silly concept of race would simply ease its way into obscurity. And I am not even talking about the stupidity of racism that has in some ways gotten worse as so many on the far right have...

The mainstream media is really a strange and funny thing. Even after all these years of doing what it does, it still can't decide if it wants to be a source of facts, a go-to place for what's happening, a tabloid, a gossip source, a place to go for all...

"We all have our own Tibets."

That was a quote and a very important conclusion that grew out of several days of outward and inner struggle of a group of very lofty thinkers, who initially focused their energies on trying to resolve the China and Tibet "problem" while gathered at...

I am not at all surprised by the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Proposition 8 passage, the statewide referendum that essentially banned gay marriage in California. I don't blame the court. As dismayed as I am by the passage of Prop 8, I had no doubt there was...

There is in Hollywood a great relief now that the nearly 10 months long threatened or potential strike by the Screen Actors Guild is seemingly coming to an end with ballots going out to the rank and file later in May.

Most people expect the tentative agreement between SAG...

What a fantastic few days this has been. I am still on a natural high as John Denver would say. Now that President-Elect Obama has gloriously become President Obama we can finally turn our attention to the real work of getting this country back on track and into that famously...

Special Correspondent Earnest Harris writes this occasional "Code Words" column for OffTheBus.

John McCain is a coward AND a racist.

There is no other way to put this, nor do I care to. Most people, including many of the mainstream media talking heads, are bending over backwards to find...

Special Correspondent Earnest Harris writes this occasional "Code Words" column for OffTheBus.

As was predicted by many and as the harsh language coming from the McCain-Palin campaign this week has made clear, with just one month to go in this election and with all the momentum shifting steadily in...