Category: OPINION

In 2013, race still mattered – especially at Fox News. According to MediaMatters, the watchdog group, last year was a banner period for race-baiting at Fox. “Viewers who spent 2013 absorbed in Fox News might be under the impression that an all-out race war has erupted across the nation this year, thanks to the network’s […]

Congress has itself to blame for its low ratings among the American people. Policymaking is all about choices; it is the calculus of weighing costs and benefits and the distribution of those costs and benefits. In theory, there are lots of policies that can make everyone better off, but they can only be accomplished by […]

This holiday season immediately follows National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. It is a national disgrace that in the capital of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, one-in-eight households struggle against hunger. One-in-twenty households report not having the resources at some point during the previous twelve months to buy food for themselves or their […]

The 2016 national elections are not that far away. It is timely and important that we not wait until then to begin having constructive discussions about who should be given the opportunity and responsibility to succeed President Barack Obama. The questions of the future of politics, economics and equal justice should never be avoided. Especially […]

“I assumed that with knowledge, sacrifice would automatically follow. In my youth and idealism I did not realize that selfishness is even more natural than sacrifice.” W.E.B. DuBois spoke those words when he reflected on the failure of his vaunted “Talented Tenth” concept. He was, as many of us are today, very idealistic about what […]

Of all the issues confronting President Obama, the Congress and the American People in 2014, rebuilding our economy continues to be our number one priority. Despite recent economic progress, far too many Americans remain out of work. Of all the requests that I receive, foremost among them is this. “Mr. Cummings, I need to feed […]

We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome someday; Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday. With 2014 right around the corner, I wonder what is the target date for someday? When I sing the song I feel vibrations from the ancestors who owned it when they sang and […]

Former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole was recently presented with an award that is named after him. The World Food Program USA’s first George McGovern and Bob Dole Leadership Award, is named after him and his friend and colleague The two teamed up in the 1970s to make food stamps easier […]

I popped into my local post office to get my Christmas stamps and was offered one celebrating Kwanzaa, one featuring holiday baubles, and another picturing gingerbread houses. Where’s the Madonna with the Christ Child, I asked myself. Feeling miffed, I left without purchasing any stamps. What Jesus Christ stands for has been removed from the […]

For the past 18 years I have devoted my life to working in what I later discovered is the area of Cultural Economic Development. My understanding of that enterprise, however, didn’t emerge until 2006 when I was forced to pick a topic for my doctoral dissertation. Through my research, I realized that what I had […]

The Republican Party’s inability to prevent some of its elected officials and party operatives from making racist and sexist remarks and tamp down others’ penchant for cringe-worthy gaffes along those lines necessitates a slight revising of that old saying: It’s always like déjà vu all over again. Last week, it was – actually for just […]