Revisiting Real Americas.

realamerica_oct28-w-21

Sarah Palin wouldn’t recognize these places. [...]

Houses Divided.

In Melissa Harris-Perry’s first night sitting in for Rachel Maddow, she educated viewers about the seemingly irrepressible wealth gap between white and minority households in the U.S.:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, [...]

Phylicia Barnes and the Black Girl’s Burden.

Phylicia Barnes

(cross-posted from slb)

I was home for the holidays when Phylicia Barnes went missing. My immediate family—all women, now four generations deep, with the birth of my daughter—huddled around the small kitchen TV, listening to local news anchors explain the facts surrounding Barnes’ disappearance: black high school [...]

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

The USDA’s Economic Research Service put out its latest figures for food insecurity hunger in the U.S. yesterday.  From the press release:

In more than a third of those households that reported difficulty in providing enough food, at least one member did not get enough to eat at some time during the year and [...]

Shaming, Young Men, and HIV in D.C.

Maybe my standards are low (actually, they probably are), but this interview Amanda Hess did with Justin Goforth, community health director at the Whitman Walker Clinic, kind of blew my mind with its humanization of young gay black men:

For a sexual health provider like the Whitman-Walker clinic, getting HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment [...]

Food Stamp Benefits Slashed for Child Nutrition Program.

Crossposted from Campus Progress.

One in eight Americans — a record high in both raw numbers and percentage of the population — are on food stamps. Many are recent additions due to the recession. Yet food stamp benefits are being reduced to help pay for other recession-fighting programs and secondary food initiatives.

Colorlines reports [...]

Always the Innocent are the First Victims.

If an alibi and the absence of a criminal record aren’t enough to keep you out of prison, then surely DNA evidence should be enough. Right?

Thirty-five years ago, a 9-year-old boy was raped in a field near his Lake Wales home. Five months later, a 19-year-old man was convicted of the rape [...]

Book of the month: All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?

This month’s pick, All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America is a recommendation from shani-o who writes: “In the book, Berg touches on the role racism has played in starvation of both whites and blacks in the 60s, notes the varying policies presidential administrations have enacted to fight hunger, and gives an [...]