Jailbreak Your Smartphone, Go to Jail

Staff / Truthdig Jan 31, 2013 As though we don't have enough absurd laws in the US, a new one has passed criminalizing the unlocking of mobile devices; the U is spending $400,000 a day to keep innocent people incarcerated in Guantanamo; and this Sunday is the Super Bowl, when we watch men cause one another brain trauma These discoveries and more after the jump. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Blacks More Likely Than Other Groups to Identify as Gay

Staff / Truthdig Oct 28, 2012 A recent study shows blacks in the U.S. are more likely to identify as gay than other ethnic groups; saggy pants have become illegal in a Florida city; meanwhile, Mitt Romney's work for big tobacco is at odds with his professed Mormon beliefs. These discoveries and more after the jump. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Racist Taunt Gets Attendees Evicted at Convention

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 29, 2012 Two attendees at the Republican National Convention were removed from the grounds after tossing nuts at a black camera operator for CNN and saying, “This is how we feed animals,” the network said. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Tape of MLK Interview Turns Up in an Attic

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 24, 2012 “ If one is truly nonviolent, that person has a loving spirit; he refuses to inflict injury upon the opponent because he, he loves the opponent,” the Rev Martin Luther King Jr says in a newly discovered tape of an interview made nearly three years before his "I Have a Dream" speech . Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Frisking History for Some Insights on Racism

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 21, 2012 In an urgent and informed discussion on race relations spanning America’s early history to the stop-and-frisk policies of the present, author, historian and New York Public Library research director Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad tells Bill Moyers how the nation’s laws were written to control black Americans. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Shades of Mercy: Presidential Forgiveness Heavily Favors Whites

Staff / Truthdig Dec 4, 2011 To avoid repeating a scandal like his predecessor’s, George W. Bush gave career lawyers in the Justice Department far-reaching authority to choose who got presidential pardons. The result: Whites are nearly four times as likely as minorities to win a pardon, even when the type of crime and severity of sentence are taken into account.Whites are nearly four times as likely as minorities to win a presidential pardon. Dig deeper ( 16 Min. Read )

FBI Engaged in Large-Scale Group Profiling

Staff / Truthdig Oct 26, 2011 Researchers at the ACLU recently uncovered an FBI program that uses census data to draw maps that link racial and ethnic communities to certain types of crimes. The investigations, known under the names of "assessments" and "domain management," appear to have been going on for several years. (more) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

American Minorities Have Been Here Before

Staff / Truthdig Aug 1, 2011 Blacks and Latinos suffered disproportionate losses of wealth and social standing, compared to whites, during the George W. Bush economy. But of course, that's merely a prelude to what unfolded next, and what's to come. (more) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Supremacist’s Slaying Stirs Racial Divide

Staff / Truthdig Apr 4, 2010 A South African white supremacist leader, Eugene Terreblanche, was allegedly murdered by two farmhands in the northwest region of the country, eliciting cries of protest from his far-right followers and a plea for calm from the country's black president, Jacob Zuma. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

It Pays to Be White

Staff / Truthdig Mar 24, 2009 Black and Latino communities have long suffered significantly higher unemployment rates than those of whites, but the economic collapse is taking labor inequity to new and alarming places. Jobs data shows that blacks and Latinos aren't just more unemployed overall, but they're losing jobs faster than their white colleagues. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AMA Apologizes for Once Excluding Blacks

Staff / Truthdig Jul 11, 2008 The American Medical Association has finally apologized for once excluding black doctors from membership. The discriminatory policies ended in the 1960s, but it has taken almost 50 years for the group to formally apologize for its institutional racism. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Obama’s Father’s Day Sermon

Eugene Robinson / Truthdig Jun 19, 2007 The subject is absent fathers. The implications for black America are dire. The fact is that "there are a lot of men out there who need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one." Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )