Words Matter for Our Progress

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary December 13, 2011 By Perry Redd   So the story goes: “we’ve made great strides in American race relations.  We’re in a post-racial society.”  I, of course, don’t go for that one.  As a matter of fact, I believe we’re rapidly digressing from the progress [...]

Thieves In the Temple

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary July 12, 2011 By Perry Redd There’s a constituency of Americans who are not being served by their elected leaders with the degree of integrity vowed to by those leaders. I’d like to think that I can pin this occurrence down to my hometown, but unfortunately, [...]

Not Unbelievable

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary June 21, 2011 By Perry Redd My country is corrupt.  I posit that it is complicit in the murder and annihilation of my race of people.  I believe they have been inventing ngenious, covert ways to undermine population growth of people of color who may [...]

The Last Word On Tucson

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary January 18, 2010 By Perry Redd The shooting in Tucson is over.  The victims have been honored and the country has mourned.  There has been tons of commentary and analysis in the week since.  A week of finger-pointing, blame-shifting and responsibility-dodging.  The facts have been [...]

The Tea Party Is On the Rampage

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary January 8, 2011 By Perry Redd I am of the mind that our country is in the midst of a dramatic change—a change for the worst.  Race is at the center of this change.  Now that the Republicans have won back the House of Representatives—with [...]

Trusting Mainstream Media

The Other Side of the Tracks: A Socially Speaking commentary December 21, 2010 By Perry Redd In America, one must know what’s happening around them. Knowledge of the revolving course of politics, social change, economics, and culture is among the most imperative and responsible things one can do for themselves, their loved ones and their [...]

Chance for Equity

I want to see how blind justice really is. This is an opportunity for you to work with me in ensuring that whites and blacks are treated equal, that rich and poor are treated equal. What am I talking about? A veteran CBS Radio News correspondent was arrested early Saturday on drug charges after police searched his Northwest Washington home and found marijuana plants growing in his yard. Officers arrested 60 year old Howard Arenstein and his wife, Orly Katz, 57, at their home in the 3500 block of T Street and charged them with possession with intent to distribute marijuana, police. How will the wheels of justice turn for him?

Repeating the Verdicts of Injustice

Injustice is nothing new to the black people of America. From Slavery to Jim Crow; from legislative disenfranchisement to judicial whitewashing, the repetition of injustice rears it’s ugly head again and again…contemporary events only remind us that there is no such thing as “post-racial America” and my position is that we not allow the mainstream media—or conservative idealists—to make this an acceptable term. There is no such thing as “post-racial America.”

Seeing Isn’t Believing

It appears that some people got it all wrong—again. When it comes to the issue of racism, they always will. Their intentions are to get it wrong, and get everyone else wrong as well. I admit, it’s a difficult thing to ask human beings to say that they are wrong. It’s just not hard-wired into our DNA. Yet, that fact of human frailty doesn’t make it right to be wrong.

Honor the Fallen in “The Other War”

This country has seen 5,478 deaths in the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the past 8 years of these conflicts. Americans have been reminded constantly that the toll taken on the families and loved ones is grossly unreported. I tend to disagree. For one to question the war, is often mistaken as an attack on the ones fighting it—an intentional misleading by more conservative-minded people. What I am here to talk to you about is the “fallen” in the other war: the war on drugs.