I am listening to Barack Obama explain his order to escalate the war in Afghanistan. But I am really wondering how the millions of people who elected him, especially young people and communities of color, will respond.

2008 was a breakthrough year in American history. In part, this...

David Brooks is a very clever and gifted writer. But his latest New York Times piece repudiating the role of race in the vitriolic backlash against Obama just doesn't pass muster.

At the core of Brooks's argument, which attempts to draw lessons from American history, is a false dichotomy...

With tens of millions in America and worldwide breathlessly awaiting his words, Barack Obama spoke of the "gathering clouds" and "raging storms" of crisis brought on by our profligate ways.

The economic meltdown, he declared, is "a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our...

Over the past month, "Detroit" has lurched to the forefront of headline news. The New York Times, for instance, has called for "Saving Detroit from Itself." "Just Say No to Detroit," retorted The Wall Street Journal.

It's long past time, however, that someone pointed out the obvious. Not only do...

Amid all the hoopla and pressure, Sarah Palin took to the stage of the RNC convention, wowing the GOP delegates and winning over most of the media commentators. Her speech commanded that we stop viewing her as a curiosity, that we take her seriously as a politician and a leader....

Millions of Barack Obama's supporters are asking, "What does he do now?" Everyone following the presidential campaign has heard sound bites of his pastor Jeremiah Wright condemning American racism and imperialism in the harshest tone possible. In response, Obama has once again been forced to distance himself from a close...

After 11 consecutive losses, Hillary Clinton renewed her efforts to win the March 4 primaries by declaring, "It's time to get real about how we actually win this election." It would be all too easy to mock her sentiment. Clinton's call to "move from good words to good works,...

After Hillary Clinton won the California Democratic Primary with strong support from Latino and Asian voters, it was an accepted truism among some political pundits that Latinos and Asians were averse to voting for an African American. Within the next weeks, however, we witnessed Barack Obama winning Virginia while carrying...

(Summary: Ending the marginalization of Asian American voices and stopping the monolithic portrayal of Asian American political attitudes would be great strides toward eliminating the conditions that sustain the "bloc vote" mentality.)

All this week, CNN has been hyping Anderson Cooper's special report on "Race, Gender and Politics." As...

On February 11, Paul Krugman touched off a mini firestorm with his New York Times column, "Hate Springs Eternal," which asserted that Obama supporters had been infected with the disease of Clinton-hating spawned by the right wing. "I won't try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I...

Sixty years ago, Carey McWilliams, the well-traveled writer/activist and soon to be editor of The Nation, described California as "our nation's racial frontier." As the West Coast's multiracial makeup posed new problems and challenges, it also offered America "one more chance, perhaps a last chance, to establish the principle of...