Urban/Global Politics

Who can explain why a seemingly left-leaning website like the Huffington Post can portray an Puerto Rican politics issue trending toward the center-right? Is it because there is so little coverage of Puerto Rico in any English-language media that there is no understanding of its politics by editors who are otherwise capable of grasping things […]

On Tuesday, June 1, Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez held a press conference at S.O.B.’s, a world music club in downtown Manhattan. The audio file with the entire news conference in Spanish is here: Silvio Rodriguez press conference The following is an approximate transcript, with many of the questions truncated. (And of course, translation is mine.) […]

What does the decay of a once-proud empire look like? If you are reading this on an I-pad in an airport, perhaps even the faint reflection of your own furrowed brow is not enough of a clue. The early warning sings are more clearly observed on the periphery, in this case the Caribbean, home of […]

Arizona State legislation SB-1070, the spectacular attempt to institutionalize anti-Latino racism is hardly surprising in view of the sustained ill will emanating from the white “victims” of Barack Obama’s presidency. It’s also not surprising from the state that wouldn’t recognize Martin Luther King’s birthday as a holiday until six years after it was first celebrated, […]

Los Angeles Angels of Anheim outfielder Torii Hunter’s comments on black Latinos last week were so embarrassing he wound up apologizing for them. “As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us,” Hunter says. “It’s like they had to get some kind of dark […]

A few months ago a poetry series at El Museo del Barrio (peripherally located on 5th Avenue in El Barrio/Spanish Harlem) called “Spic Up/Speak Out” got so many folks riled up that El Museo caved just a week later and changed the name of the series. Apparently, the s-word has not lost its temporary currency […]

You may or may not agree with my recent op ed (which has spread like wildfire from the Bellingham (Washington) Herald to the Cleveland Plain Dealer) that argues that Puerto Ricans are being saddled with an unfair burden by having their birth certificates invalidated en masse by the U.S. State Department and the so-called government […]

Today’s pronouncements from Qatar seem to confirm what’s been bubbling under the surface for several months now. With the filibuster game even more complicated by nude model Scott Brown’s election to the U.S. Senate–his vote seemingly ensuring no meaningful Congressional action on health care and jobs, as if there were any bipartisan hope to begin […]

Yeah we’re pretty sick of Sarah right now. If you listen to the speech she made at the Teabagger, sorry, Tea Party convention on Saturday, you’ll hear stuff that barely qualifies as more intelligible than pure drivel. Much has been said about the hypocrisy of her using crudely handwritten notes on the palm of her […]

It’s a classic New Yorker cover. We’re at the point where figuring out what Obama is doing has become a painful exercise. The latest rumor, that he will announce a 3-year spending freeze at the upcoming State of the Union address, seems to confirm that the Democratic Party has become Wall Street’s party. Main Street, […]