Michael Cottman

I truly hope Rihanna knows what she’s doing. Rihanna, a victim of domestic violence, is back with Chris Brown three years after Brown was arrested for assaulting her. Brown, 23, still has two years of probation to serve for his felony assault conviction. In case you forgot the dramatic story line, here’s what happened in […]

Debbie Halvorson is a white Democrat, a staunch supporter of The National Rifle Association, and an ex-congresswoman who desperately wants to represent the majority-black district vacated by former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. And she could win. Some black Democrats initially considered Halvorson a longshot candidate, but in politics anything is possible and now folks are […]

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous has a bold suggestion for President Barack Obama: Appoint an African American woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. “He still has several more appointments, and we expect that we’ll see at least the same diversity that we saw the first time around,” Jealous told POLITICO. “What we’re hoping to see is […]

For those few African Americans who claim they don’t feel the same sense of euphoria, think again: Monday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama was still all about making history. I’ve overheard some black residents of Washington, D.C. talking about how Obama’s inauguration was no longer important, or somehow insignificant, because we’ve been there, done that […]

President Barack Obama is subtly incorporating race into his inauguration for a second term in the White House. When Obama is publicly sworn-in on Monday as America’s 45th president, he will place his right hand on two weather-worn Bibles – one owned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the other by Abraham Lincoln – […]

Don’t drag President Barack Obama’s daughters into the debate over guns. Just when I thought the National Rifle Association couldn’t sink any lower – it did. The NRA released a shameless video ad this week that references Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, and links the girls to Obama’s $500 million plan to reduce gun violence […]

I appreciate Colin Powell’s bold comments about the racism that permeates the Republican Party – I only wish that Powell had decided to unleash his wrath on the GOP during last year’s presidential election. But it’s better late than never – and Powell did the right thing by putting his party on notice. “There’s also […]

Give President Barack Obama a break. He deserves time to complete his Cabinet appointments. The president was forced to defend his record on diversity Monday after Democrats started lining up to criticize Obama for appointing too many white men to his Cabinet and not selecting enough women and people of color to his inner circle. […]

Sweetie Pie’s is saving Oprah Winfrey’s television network. Actually, a more strategic effort to offer exclusive black programming is significantly boosting ratings for OWN, Winfrey’s struggling two-year-old network that has caused major headaches for executives of Discovery Communications, the company that leveraged a reported $300 million to get OWN up and running. But today, OWN […]

Robert Griffin III, the Washington Washington Football Team sensational rookie quarterback, had no business playing football in last week’s playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks. I know it. Fans know it. And Mike Shanahan, the stone-faced coach of the Washington Football Team, ought to know it, too. It was clear that Shanahan should have pulled […]

It seems like a troubling trend: Racists targeting black women in the media. The recent hate-filled note written to Jemele Hill began this way: “Hell, I don’t like women broadcasters to begin with, yet alone bitch jungle bunnies …this “spear chucker needs to go away.” “Get her outa here before she back-slides into some ebonics […]

The Obama administration released a report that explains how the so-called “fiscal cliff” impacts African Americans at a time when so many black families are struggling to make ends meet. The report highlights the number of middle class families impacted by a tax increase on Jan. 1, including the number of African Americans that could lose […]