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‘Bloody Sunday’ is a moment forever etched in the history of the civil rights movement in America. What should have been a peaceful march for the rights of blacks to vote without hindrance became a gruesome scene of police brutality on display. Edmund Pettus Bridge - Selma Alabama State police force marchers to turn around at a March 1965 civil rights protest (Photo: Wikimedia) The images of police battering protestors on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama gave the world a picture of the high price people would pay for human rights. With the widespread popularity of the Oscar-winning film...

Over the past year and a half, we've seen much in the way of speculation of what Obama is really up to, what his true agenda might be behind all the soothing and meretricious rhetoric. It was quite clear that "Obama" was a construct, a carefully manufactured image, as all politicians are to one extent or another. But Obama was an extreme example -- all image, most of it having little or no connection with any discernable substance. The gap between what he said and what he would then proceed to do was wide and glaring. This obvious and undeniable...

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Pride in the Street is expected to draw protesters to downtown Pittsburgh Saturday, prompting police to make “sight and sound locations” available to demonstrators. “The purpose for these locations is to provide a safe venue for the expression of dissenting perspectives while securing reasonable separation between groups to prevent violence from occurring. It is the role of police to maintain reasonable separation to ensure the safety of all,” police Chief Cameron McLay said in a statement. --snip-- Protesters within the LGBT community are upset over the Delta Foundation’s leadership because they believe people of color and other...

Senator Clinton Submits Reparations Bill, Tax IncreaseBy John W. Albanese and Uome Jackson Democrat Presidential Candidate Rev. Al Sharpton (left) and New York Senator Hillary Clinton (right) demonstrate for reparations for slavery on the National Mall in Washington. Senator Clinton has authored the "Ebony and Ivory Tax Bill," which seeks to impose selective income tax increases on Caucasian taxpayers, the revenues from which will be earmarked to create a superfund that will pay cash to African- Americans.  WASHINGTON DC — The debate over whether the federal government should pay reparations to African-Americans may soon end. Today, in an unprecedented compromise, Senators...

After all those straight white men, we are overdue a woman in the Oval Office. More than one, in fact … Two things happened the past week that got me thinking about representation – about the importance of seeing ourselves outside of ourselves. The first thing was Hillary Clinton announcing her bid for the 2016 presidency. The second thing was NRA president Wayne LaPierre declaring, in regard to Obama and Clinton, that: “Eight years of one demographically symbolic president is enough.” As far as Hillary goes, she has already been think-pieced to death (a journalist friend suggested I title this...

Charles Payne, host of Fox Business News' Making Money, said on Thursday: I think that there's going to be an official apology from the White House to slavery in America and then a major push to get cash, and I'm talking lots of cash. Many including those closest to President Obama will push him to make this happen. About reparations, Scottie Nell Hughes, Tea Party News Network director and a frequent Making Money guest, said: Sure, slavery was a horrible thing that happened, but this [reparations payments] is not going to help race relations in the United States today....

A photo published in The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday showed young black men gleefully, almost hysterically, dashing out of a looted Baltimore CVS store that would later be set ablaze. One was clutching a box of Froot Loops and half-gallon of ice cream, and one had a couple 50-ounce bottles of Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent, dermatologist tested, for sensitive skin. The mob mentality that existed at that moment prompted them to grab items worth less than $20. It was a criminal act warped by the African-American experience in the U.S., where they and their ancestors have long been denied...

Conversations about reparations are not about money but about people and about the way that people are seen and valued in our society. These are difficult conversations, and we have found that what is most challenging about the idea of reparations today is the notion that America still owes a debt to black people.. We have spent the past eight months wrestling with the question about whether reparations — as Ta-Nehisi Coates so eloquently argued — could ameliorate inequality for black people in America. We believe that the answer to this question is connected to how well one can understand...

The questions around reparations to descendants of slaves in America often trigger strident conversations. These discussions lay bare how race continues to affect the nation - despite the unfounded protestations by Americans that race holds little relevance to their lives. The "coded racial appeals" that Ian Haney Lopez has written in his informative book, "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked The Middle Class," is must reading for all Americans and provides a foundation for how racism endures and evolves. In this week's guest blog, Michael Holzman provides additional thought suggesting the moral debt America...

Dr. Dorothy E. Roberts, who is described by Penn Law as "an acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law," believes that the United States is run by "patriarchal white supremacists" and that reparations are, in part, the answer to inequity between African Americans and whites. Dr. Roberts teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and has made appearances on MSNBC. Writing publicly, Dr. Roberts has made her sentiments on race relations in the United States known. The United States, she believes, systematically oppresses people of color. She goes as far as to say that studies on wealth must account for...

I have heard all the things that are going to happen if the Democrats retake the House of Repesentatives ,but John Conyers pet issue of Reparations for Blacks has not been mentioned once

I started this narrative bibliography for "The Case for Reparations" back in June, but, regrettably, I didn't finish the final section before I left for the summer. Some time has passed but I think it is very important that, as much as possible, I complete this public acknowledgement of all the previous work that contributed to my own. As I've written, the process began with the understanding that racism was a "done thing" and not an irrepressible clash between people of different hues. Another way of putting this is to say white supremacy is not an invention of white people;...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) The city of Chicago is proposing a $5.5 million reparations package for those who suffered under the ruthless rule of police commander Jon Burge from 1972 to 1991. Backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the plan would supply victims with free college tuition, counseling for drug abuse and psychological issues, and include a formal apology from the city, according to the Chicago Tribune. While the plan appears to be an attempt to reckon with part of the city's less-than-spotless past, Thursday evening Fox Business Network's Charles Payne said he's afraid nationwide slavery reparations might be next. "The news in my...

Millionaire Hillary rally on New York City island as she promises to look out for ordinary Americans' pocketbooks – but the 'overflow' crowd zone is left EMPTY New York City rally brings people from several states to watch Clinton reboot her campaign after two months in low gear Speech emphasizes economic issues and puts Hillary on the hot seat as she suffers wealthy, elitist image Clinton is setting herself up as Obama's heir apparent 'She's earned it,' one attendee said Saturday; 'All those campaigns, all that travel at the State Department. All that putting up with Bill' Smaller than expected...

Hillary Clinton's Saturday campaign reboot isn't just her first public rally. Coming a day after President Obama suffered an embarrassing legislative defeat, it is a changing of the guard for the Democratic Party. Make no mistake: while House Republicans also voted overwhelmingly against the president on a key trade bill Friday, it was his fellow Democrats who handed him the most stinging rebuke. Just 40 Democrats out of 188 voted with Obama. Nearly 80 percent of House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, went against him. A mere two of the 10 Democrats representing Obama's home state of Illinois in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton promised on Saturday to fight for ordinary Americans who have been left behind as the economy recovers, appealing to working families at the first major rally of her 2016 White House campaign. Speaking on New York's Roosevelt Island, within sight of Manhattan's skyscrapers, Clinton promised would "make the economy work for everyday Americans, not just those at the top" if elected president. The gathering of several thousand people cheered as Clinton said working people are asking why wealth is reserved for chief executives and hedge fund managers. "You have to wonder, when...

Love the smell of flop sweat in the morning? That might have been the aroma wafting off Roosevelt Island today as Hillary "kicked off" her campaign [whatever happened to "you only get one chance to make a first impression?" Guess Hillary doesn't use Head & Shoulders.] On MSNBC's Weekends with Alex Witt today, two reporters painted a picture of a crowd that was smaller than hoped for, not overly enthusiastic, and problematically pale. View the video here.

(Reuters) - Appealing to working families in her first major campaign speech, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Saturday she would rewrite the U.S. tax code if she is elected so that it rewards hard work, and not quick equities trades or money stashed away overseas. She also pledged to establish a national infrastructure bank financed by bonds, an idea championed by President Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat.

When I was about 12 years old, I was taking a class in my Hungarian elementary school on Marxist economics. One day we were being told about Marx’s famous goal for the communist paradise he envisioned for us all: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."; As most kids back in Budapest, I didn’t pay much attention to these lessons since they were nothing but pure propaganda for the ruling communists who ran the country. But I did happen to be listening to this particular presentation and once the “teacher” was done, I didn’t have...

That’s one of several phrases deemed a ‘microaggression’ at faculty leader training sessions initiated by University of California President Janet Napolitano “America is the land of opportunity,” “There is only one race, the human race” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” are among a long list of alleged microaggressions faculty leaders of the University of California system have been instructed not to say. These so-called microaggressions – considered examples of subconscious racism – were presented at faculty leader training sessions held throughout the 2014-15 school year at nine of the 10 UC campuses. The sessions,...