Commentary

The power in our words

Saturday, 19 January 2013 17:45 Scott Gray, President/CEO

Recently, I heard a speaker discuss the power of words; our vocabulary, and the things we tell ourselves about our situation, our future and our potential. This speaker concluded that simply by changing what we said we could change our outcomes.

The massive human and moral cost of gun violence

Saturday, 19 January 2013 17:36 Marian Wright Edelman, NNPA Columnist

The heartrending massacre of 20, 6- and 7-year-old children and six educators in Newtown, Conn. has galvanized public attention once again after a mass shooting. But the killing of children by gun violence is not new. It has been an unreported and under-reported plague that has snuffed out the lives of 119,079 children and teenagers since 1979.

Boehner: Intemperate, Ignorant and Out of Control

Monday, 14 January 2013 15:24 Julianne Malveaux, NNPA Columnist

Congressman John Boehner was re-elected speaker of the House of Representatives with a narrow vote. Needing 218 votes, he barely clinched it with 220. His narrow vote reflects the fact that no Democrat would vote for him and that many Republicans are disillusioned of him. Perhaps it also reflects the fact that he has so poorly comported himself that he does not deserve reelection.

Wilmington Ten Pardons: Black Press at its Best 

Monday, 14 January 2013 15:20 George E. Curry,  NNPA Columnist

When then-National Newspaper Publishers Association Chairman Danny Bakewell, Sr. asked me to emcee the Black Press Week luncheon at the National Press Club in 2011, I had no idea that I would be witnessing history. At the urging of Wilmington Journal Publisher Mary Alice Thatch, the NNPA decided to launch a national campaign to win pardons for the Wilmington 10, a group of activists who were falsely convicted and sentenced to a combined total of 282 years.

Let’s elect Tim Scott President

Monday, 07 January 2013 14:20 William Reed,  NNPA Columnist

If Sen. Timothy Eugene Scott is the GOP standard bearer in the 2016 presidential elections, will any Black Americans vote for him? The appointment of Scott to a U.S. Senate seat representing South Carolina is the Republicans' most recent example of doing everything they can to shed the perception that the party is comprised, and run by old, White men. Being anti-Republican, however, is systemic among African Americans.

Social paranoia feeds U.S. gun culture

Monday, 07 January 2013 13:10 New America Media, Commentary, Rene Ciria-Cruz

The gun has an indelible presence in America's popular consciousness. The myth-making entertainment industry has embellished and magnified the gun's prominent role in the narrative of the nation's founding and rapid expansion across the continent over Indian lands and trackless wilds.

Make 2013 a year of renewal, not ruin

Monday, 07 January 2013 13:05 Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

The new year begins with a bad hangover from 2012’s inane debate over the “fiscal cliff.” The furious debate focused only on how much damage would be done to the economy and who would pay the price, how much and what would be cut, who would pay higher taxes and who would suffer the most.