Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Most violence is intra-racial, and much of the violence in African-American communities is a function of drug availability, joblessness and poverty.
North Carolina is a fascinating state, because you've got these urban areas. You've got the Piedmont Triangle - Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point.
If some of the recovery money had gone to cities instead of states, the urban population, read "Black" and "Brown," would be better off with recovery jobs.
I don't know how many off the record conversations I've had with African-American leaders who would not be quoted and refused to make their sentiments public.
Do you really think I'm going to go on record telling you the craziest thing I've ever done. There's a reel in my brain, and I think I'll keep it there. No regrets, though.
President [Barack] Obama did put together a task force on 21st Century Policing, led by Philadelphia police chief Charles Ramsey, to look at some of these issues after Ferguson.
It was quite a process to narrow more than 400 columns down to 80. I write weekly, though, and I don't always write about President [Barack] Obama, so that was the easy elimination.
He was in Poland to participate in the NATO conference, President [Barack] Obama did respond well to the back-to-back killings, as well as to the attacks on Dallas police officers that followed.
Black child poverty is higher. As I write in the epilogue, "Yes we can. No he didn't. President [Barack] Obama didn't push black people backward, but he missed the opportunity to move us forward."
I hope his wife feeds him [Clarence Thomas, Justice, U.S. Supreme Court] lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. . . . He is an absolutely reprehensible person.
References to everybody just disturb me, and it also disturbs me that the people who make policy are not the same people who live policy. When we talk about everybody, we are leaving a whole lot of bodies out.
President [Barack] Obama's choice of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff was questionable, and perhaps coverups around the police violence against black people in Chicago is reflective of Mr. Emmanuel's values.
While people are prepared to talk about Social Security, about marriage equality, about any number of other issues, people are not prepared - your layperson is not prepared to have a conversation about foreign policy.
Did Rahm Emmanuel serve President Barack] Obama or did he serve himself as he prepared to run for Mayor of Chicago? I don't use the term black-on-black violence, since I've never heard the term white-on-white violence.
Sometimes, I repeat myself, and that was a second elimination [of Barack Obama]. I worked with a team, including a great editor who, as the project came together, suggested other additions and eliminations. It was a process.
Interesting statistic: In every economic recovery until 1982, working people captured more than 80 percent of the value of the recovery. Since 1982, the top 10 percent has captured 90 percent of the value of the economic recovery.
Obviously these conditions [violence, poverty] predate the [Barack] Obama presidency and the president has limited ways to dent this violence. But funding war weapons in cities, as opposed to more community policing, is not the solution.
I think the takeaway from not holding President Obama accountable is, no matter how enthusiastic you are about Hillary Clinton, no matter how enthusiastic you are, the first thing that needs to happen is that people need to start planning how to hold her accountable.
As I write in the book, I do not regret either of my votes for President [Barack] Obama, nor my support of him when he ran for the Senate before that. I get excited as I ever did when I see that black man on Air Force One. But I won't settle for symbolism, and our President's record should be open for analysis.
Cutting HBCUs was unconscionable. Implementing new regulations on Parent Plus loans, which cost HBCUs 28,000 students, was hostile. At the same time, it is important to note that, except for his first two years, which were a missed opportunity, President [Barack] Obama faced rabid opposition from the Republicans.
Of course, Mr. Hannity was outraged that any American would not cross her hand over her heart and repeat the hypocritical words, one nation. Whenever we come up on the Fourth of You Lie, I think of Frederick Douglas and his masterful oration, The meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro. Pledge the flag? I think not!
The President [Barack Obama] became quite emotional about transgender student rights, threatening to pull Department of Education funds from school districts that do not comply with federal regulations. Black children are suspended from school three times more than white children are, and there is no evidence that black children are three times as unruly.
I serve on the Institute of the Black World's National Commission on African-American Reparations, and we have asked the President [Barack Obama] to, by executive order, establish a commission to study reparations. He can do this without Congressional approval. While I am not optimistic, I do hope that President Obama considers this in these waning months of his Presidency.
I especially appreciated hearing the President [Barack Obama] affirm that "black lives matter" and that it means that some citizens are feeling more pain, and experiencing more negative effects than others, and he offered up the stats. He also indicated that black lives matter does not negate the fact that blue lives matter. He ably walked the tightrope, here, between affirming both black life and police life.
I always want to read something about our people's enslavement near the 4th. To keep it light, I also read Rolanda Watts' "Destiny Lingers" She is a sisterfriend and I ran into her at Essence. Then, I finished Paul Taylor's "The Next America." Taylor is the Executive VP at the Pew Research Center, and he uses their excellent data base to talk about the coming "generational showdown" which we are experiencing, at some level, in Black America.
This is a column collection, or as one colleague called it, "history in real time," recounting my perspective on the highs and lows of this presidency from an African-American perspective. More than simply a column collection, the book has a substantial introduction that frames the [Barack] Obama presidency, explores the way Obama was treated by the political establishment and also how this first black president treated "his" people. In the epilogue, I use numbers to tell the story of African-American gains and losses during this presidency.