Free Republic

Faced with alarmingly low graduation rates for black males, the University of Connecticut is trying something it calls bold -- and critics call segregation. The school's main campus in Storrs has launched a program slated for fall in which 40 black male undergraduates live together in on-campus housing. Proponents believe the students can draw on their common experiences and help each other make it to commencement. But others cringe at the idea of black-only housing, saying it turns decades of hard-fought racial progress on its head. [...] ScHOLA2RS House -- which stands for "Scholastic House of Leaders who are African...

Chicago Theological Seminary launched a new campaign on Monday intended to raise awareness about white people's ignorance of their own "white privilege." The campaign centers around a YouTube video titled "White Privilege Glasses," in which a young white male receives a pair of "white privilege glasses" that allow him to see the world that black people see, a world in which street signs literally read "slave owner" and sneering police officers go out of their way to be physically aggressive.

A new book by Columbia sociology professor Alondra Nelson says that using DNA technology to find their African roots is becoming increasingly popular among Black people. In an interview with NPR, Nelson estimates that about 1 million have taken the test so far. The tests have also been popularized through Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates' show Finding Your Roots, which traces the family history of famous Americans such as Oprah and Chris Rock. Nelson told NPR that discovering their genetic roots was a way for Black people to fill in a missing part of their history. "Part of what I...

Rev. Jesse Jackson partially credits the casting of black British actor John Boyega for the financial success of Star Wars: the Force Awakens in an op-ed piece about “Hollywood apartheid.” “For the second year in a row, no actor or actress of color has been nominated for an Academy Award. That is a shameful streak,” Jackson wrote in USA TODAY on Monday. “But the growing outcry over the whitewashing of the prestigious golden statue and the industry it celebrates is a sign of at least some progress.” Jackson wrote that minority performers are the future of the industry. “By midcentury,...

<p>1. The 2016 Presidential Election. So... we're just gonna act like that thing on his head is hair? Aside from the fact that he's shown himself to be a sexist bigot, if Donald Trump isn't even perceptive enough to notice a seagull nesting on his head then how the hell can he run a country? Only the most racist and player-hatery of my White homies could possibly be pro-Trump. And if that's what you're about, then that's your business. But don't ruin the Presidential Elections for the rest of us this month. Keep it to yourself until March. Let us enjoy our last Black History Month with a Black president in peace.</p>

Conservative mega-donor Charles Koch says reforming the criminal justice system to make it more fair to the "disadvantaged" will be a major one of his priorities in 2015.The businessman said that the criminal justice system needs reforms aimed at “making it fair and making [criminal] sentences more appropriate to the crime that has been committed.” “Over the next year, we are going to be pushing the issues key to this, which need a lot of work in this country,” Koch told The Wichita Eagle in an interview published Saturday night. “And that would be freedom of speech, cronyism and how that relates to opportunities for...

With the presidential race the focus of most of the media attention, a major division among Senate Republicans over so-called "criminal justice reform" has gotten little attention. But the liberal media are now beginning to notice that conservatives are mounting a campaign to stop a piece of legislation that has been advertised as a major part of President Obama's left-wing legacy. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123) would release thousands of criminals back on the streets at a time of rising crime rates, in the name of reducing what liberals call "mass incarceration."

During a recent visit to the United States, a United Nations (UN) working group has said that the US should consider giving long overdue reparations to descendants of slaves. The group also suggests the US government establish a national human rights commission, and publicly acknowledge that the Transatlantic Slave Trade was a crime against humanity. The UN working group, called "Experts on People of African Descent," went on a fact-finding mission, which included meetings with African-Americans from multiple cities, including Baltimore, New York, and Chicago. Although they won't release their full report until September, each member read a statement to...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had the voice of a liberal and a libertarian when he wrote a piece for the Brennan Center for Justice in April that ripped the federal criminal justice system on three fronts -- "overcriminalization, harsh mandatory minimum sentences, and the demise of jury trials." "Draconian mandatory minimum sentences," he wrote, can produce sentences that far outweigh the crime, especially for "nonviolent drug offenders." The Ted Cruz who wrote that piece -- and co-sponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 with Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. -- may not be familiar to those following...

Take note Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith: Getting political has its risks. After the actress declared Monday that she will be boycotting the Oscars after her husband was snubbed, Alexis Arquette took a major swing at the pair for what she alleges is hypocrisy. The transgender actress and gender-rights activist "outed" the married couple with a Facebook post that argued that Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s comments on race and the Oscars were invalid because they won't ’fess up about their alleged homosexuality. "When Jada comes out as Gay and her beard husband admits his first marriage ended when she...

Is the “green” movement too white? According to former Obama administration green jobs czar Van Jones, it is. Jones told the news site Grist that the environmental movement has a diversity problem. “The mainstream donors and environmental organizations could be strengthened just by recognizing the other ‘environmentalisms’ that are already existing and flourishing outside their purview,” Jones said. Historically, many environmental organizations have been mostly white, and organizations tying environmentalism to social justice received a much smaller amount of funding than mainstream groups. But Jones said that a movement that welcomed more diversity would flourish. “If you go to Detroit,...

San Francisco police officers are being asked to combat racism in the ranks and take a pledge to turn in colleagues displaying intolerant behavior, such as slurs and jokes targeting people of color, gays and women. The pledge is part of a broader public relations campaign by the embattled police department to repair frayed relations with minority neighborhoods and community activists. The campaign comes amid growing tensions between police and black communities that are shaking up departments across the country and have led to the dismissal of top brass in some cities, including Chicago. Politically progressive San Francisco is not...

Former University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe, who resigned from his post amid protests over the school's handling of racial matters on campus, sent a confidential email to supporters last week complaining about the incident. In the email, which was leaked to local media, Mr. Wolfe compiled a list of people he believed made it impossible for him to keep his job at the university, including outgoing Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, ex-Mizzou football coach Gary Pinkel and the players that joined a strike, and an unnamed "significant Ferguson protester," most likely a reference to Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson....

A teacher in Minneola, Florida is under fire for a lesson in racism she gave to students returning from the Martin Luther King holiday. The teacher, who works at a charter school called Minneola Elementary, conducted a social experiment meant to show her children the dangers of discrimination. One problem: The kids are only in the first grade. Second problem: She didn't clear the lesson with administrators. Third problem: She didn't notify parents until after the lesson had taken place. This trio of problems has her in hot water with parents, to say nothing of Principal Sherry Watts. Watts said...

"It's boring." Actress and star of the blockbuster Twilight movie series Kristin Stewart spoke with Variety magazine about the supposed gender gap in Hollywood's paycheck. "Instead of sitting around and complaining about that, do something," Stewart said. "Go write something, go do something." "And that's easy to say," she continued. "Like, ****, it's hard to get movies made. It's a huge luxury. Who gets to just make movies? But that subject is just so prevalently everywhere right now, and it's boring." "Guys make more money because their movies make more money," she added. "Let's start making more movies. It makes...

For quite some time, I've been hearing that social-justice warriors want me to "check my privilege," but now they've decided that privilege-checking is actually problematic, too. In a "special" to the Daily Californian, University of California at Berkeley's official student newspaper, senior Efe Atali explains that not only is privilege definitely a huge problem, but also so is the way that people "feel comfortable in encouraging privilege talk."

Lou Holtz once said, "Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them." Unfortunately, Lou Holtz is a man out-of-step with our whiny age. Today, people will not shut up about their problems. They want to let you know about every issue they have, every "microaggression" and every time they're offended. It's a bottomless sea of discontent. Worse yet, our generation of complainers never seems to blame themselves for their own problems. Instead they've picked out a group of designated fall guys that it's always okay to blame for...

In this the eighth year of Barry’s historic, post-racial presidency, history is about to be made again. A blizzard! In January! And even this historic event is marred by ongoing racism in America. I mean, DC is practically buried in white privilege today.Yeah, I said it: white privilege (WP). And while the Snow gods are trying hard to spread the wealth around, some people are going to get way more than their fair share. As usual this unfair distribution will impact minorities and women the most as they attempt to stock up on necessities to weather the storm. The mostly...

MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said that “I do believe in reparations, if he could figure out what it would be” in a discussion on Democratic presidential candidate Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ (I-VT) position on the issues on Wednesday.

According to a columnist for the Duke University student newspaper, America's "obsession with the First Amendment" is really just "an expression of white supremacy." "I am thinking about how an urgent and overdue conversation about racism-on our campus and across our country - has been derailed by a diversionary and duplicitous obsession with the First Amendment," graduate student Bennett Carpenter wrote in university newspaper The Chronicle. "I am thinking about how quickly the conversation has shifted from white supremacy to white fragility - and how this shift is itself an expression of white supremacy." Apparently unaware of the irony of...