With the exception of the wealthiest Americans, almost everyone has suffered from the recent economic meltdown.

But communities of color have suffered disproportionately, with higher unemployment, more foreclosures and shuttered businesses, disproportionate victimization by predatory lending, and faster loss of family and community assets.

That’s why, in the Wall Street reform effort, race matters.

Fortunately, in addition to putting our entire economy back on solid footing, the strong bill passed by Congress, which President Obama says he will sign this week, pays special attention to the needs of diverse communities. Read more...

By Ron Walters
NNPA
It was another right-on-time moment that Ben Jealous exercised at the NAACP Convention in calling out the Tea Party for coddling elements of racism within their midst.  The Convention went on to pass a resolution to this effect, calling on the leadership of the party to repudiate these elements, but it will not become official until approved by the Executive Committee in October.  
Right away, Mark Williams, the head of a group called the Tea Party Express and a California radio host, posted a letter to his website that was aimed at Jealous and dripping with racism. It said in part: “We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards.

By Gary L. Flowers
NNPA
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I read an article on Sunday, July 11, 2010 in the Washington Post entitled “Reform” (with form spelled upside down) by Michael Lend with little concurrence. Not only was the word reform disjointed, but also yellow-colored arrows flowed from the word in haphazard directions akin to its misdirection of American public policy history.
Human history advises that to respond to extraordinary times extraordinary measures are necessary. For example, in response to the threat of a collapsing society the Nubian (Ancient Egyptian) Pharaoh Akhnaken radically shifted his people’s belief of many Gods (polytheism) to that of one God (monotheism).

By Marc H. Morial 
NNPA
"The hardship and suffering caused by unemployment penetrates every area of life.  While politicians are tallying up the economic costs of unemployment, I wish they'd be more aware of the social and moral consequences…"  Eva Burrows - the 13th General of the Salvation Army
It is unconscionable that the Senate has taken a 10-day July 4th recess after failing last week to pass a much-needed jobs bill.  As a result, unemployment benefits for more than one million out of work Americans have now been terminated.  The bill would have also extended tax cuts for small businesses, provided billions of dollars to states to prevent layoffs of state and local workers, extended Medicaid reimbursements for states and made available $1 billion for a youth summer jobs initiative.