Jeremiah Wright

Harken back to June, 1992. Bill Clinton was having trouble with Reagan democrats. Then Sister Souljah, an outspoken rapper and political activist, made some very incendiary comments in a Washington Post interview regarding the horrific LA riots. "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week...

Most people, Senator Barack Obama supporters in particular, are likely to assume that Reverend Jeremiah Wright's resurgence can further damage Obama's chances at "electability". However, there is a strong case to be made that senator John McCain will also suffer from Wright's reemergence.

Having already garnered his party's...

The latest right-wing game is to pin controversial figures, who might have said or done anything objectionable at any point in their lifetimes, to Barack Obama. Then make him apologize for them. Then make him denounce and reject them. And then say he hasn't done enough to "distance" himself from...

Remember when Barack first put himself forward? The Obama's not black enough kerfuffle among the old guard civil rights activists? Most of them slowly came around, driven partly by the Clintons' willingness to marginalize Barack after South Carolina but mostly because -- it was just crazy not to. After...

In 1962, in connection with the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the celebrated black writer, James Baldwin wrote a dedicatory letter to his nephew on how to survive and deal with living with white racism in America. It was published as an Essay in New York Magazine under the...

Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com

I haven't written much about the Rev. Wright thing because so many people have taken this topic on ad infinitum that there hasn't seemed much new to say. But with him doing his media tour thing, I thought I would weigh in on a topic not that...

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each have serious spoilers in their campaigns, on the verge of destroying their hopes for the presidency.

For Barack, the spoiler is his ex-pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For Hillary, it is her husband, the ex-President Bill Clinton.

Bill's bizarre behavior during the Clinton campaign...

I've heard Rev Wright compared to Al Sharpton, after his clowning answers to questions at the National Press Club early today. I wondered, then I realized that while he can be a very sincere even profound philosopher, he may end up being more like the brother of President Jimmy...

For new school black politicians, it is an essential question: How do you recognize the righteous anger of those frustrated by racial inequality without looking like just another Angry Black Man?

Those of us who write often about black folks and politics knew there would come a moment when...