Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots have been catching flak for being so white. Occupy Atlanta is no exception, getting off to a rough start last Friday when civil rights movement hero-turned-Congressman John Lewis stopped by to offer his support, only to be waved off by the mostly white general assembly, which is the Occupy movement’s collective decision-making group.

We all know that people look different. Anyone can tell a Czech from a Chinese. But are these differences racial? What does race mean? Find the answers to these and other questions by exploring different interactivities within this site.

If someone asked you to define contemporary racism, what would you say? What would be the first things that came to mind? And do you think your answer would be any different from people of a different racial or ethnic background?

The Madison worker uprising shook up the US political landscape. State governments that were peacefully going about their business forcing workers and communities to pay for upper class gluttony are facing resistance on a scale they had not imagined.

Yes, Glenn Beck has announced that he will “transition off” his daily TV show on Fox News and, yes, I’ll miss him. You read that right. I will miss Glenn Beck.

No, I will not miss his blatant attempts to gin up fear in the hearts of Americans by slandering and scapegoating poor people, people of color, unions and women. No, I will not miss him convening “representative” audiences of “ordinary people” who are almost always white and mostly male and implicitly signaling they are the “real Americans.” And certainly, no, I will not miss the bagpipes.

But here, in all honesty, are five things I will miss about Glenn Beck—and lessons that we all should learn.

Two ugly forces had to combine to produce the birth certificate sideshow, which can only be described as a national disgrace. One is a calculated attempt by Obama’s political opponents to de-legitimize his presidency.

Illinois State Senate candidate Al Reynolds (pictured) is in hot water, after making some comments about black men that even his fellow Republicans have found to be quite offensive. When asked about black men going to college, Reynolds had this to say:

"I've been in the city and the dichotomy of the women and the men in the minorities, there is a difference in the fact that most minority women, either the single parent or coming from a poor neighborhood, are motivated more so than the minority men. And it's a pretty good reason. Most of the women who are single parents have to find work to support their family. The minority men find it more lucrative to be able to do drugs or other avenues rather than do education. It's easier."

"We need to provide ways that are more incentive, other than just sports avenues, for the men for the minorities to want to go to college and get an education and better themselves before the women have to support them all."

PRESS RELEASE - August 24, 2010

ARC Presents Facing Race 2010: Premier RacialJustice Conference includes presenters Melissa Harris-Lacewell, VanJones, Tim Wise and Maria Teresa Kumar

We keep hearing that women are surging ahead in school and work, and that men are falling behind. What we don't hear is that most of these discrepancies come from race.

No wonder Rand Paul is horrified by the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Six months ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission posted a 10-page fact sheet on its Web site that should force any repugnant employer to cringe.

Louis Stark, a former slave, owned property in Western Canada in the 1860s, a time when most other African Americans legally were someone's property. Canadian historians believe, however, that race may have caught up with the pioneer the day he was found dead at the bottom of a cliff.

RACISM explains a lot of white opposition to Barack Obama, say some Democrats. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument out of hand. Lexington walked into a shop in Millington, Tennessee last week and asked the white gentleman behind the counter what he thought of the 44th president. "He's a @!$%#ing @!$%#," came the reply. The shopkeeper then helpfully explained that he was "not bashful" about expressing his opinions.

As a matter of conscience, I will not justify, understand or accept the atrocious view of Muslim terrorists that their actions represent a just war. They are reprehensible, and their actions a sin against humanity.

And I will never, under any circumstances, cast Confederates as heroic figures who should be honored and revered. No -- they were, and forever will be, domestic terrorists.

The right month to place even greater emphasis on studying the Confederacy is March.

But, his "error" is something historian Barbara W. Tuchman would have understood. In her 1981 book, Practicing History: Selected Essays, she wrote that "Leaving things out because they do not fit is writing fiction, not history."

In that regard, Confederate sympathizers have been writing fiction about what the Confederacy stood for ever since Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S.Grant at Appomattox, Virginia April 9, 1865. Governor McDonnell's choosing the wrong month was as deliberate as his initial omission of any reference to Virginia having been a slave state; and to the Confederacy having fought the war in order to maintain slavery, and as his implying that Virginia was then an all-white state, when in fact in 1860 blacks, both enslaved and free, comprised nearly half of its population.

But then, the contortions of the Republican Governor's original proclamation are entirely consistent with the record of racially-coded politics the erstwhile "Party of Lincoln" has employed for the last four decades.

A Two Hour Special Event on Race Relations in America On Martin Luther King Day

Tom Joyner and Chris MatthewsOne year after the inauguration of the first African-American President, MSNBC will present "Hope and Fear in Obama's America," January 18, 2010, 10 p.m. ET, an extended discussion surrounding race and post-racial identity in America. Moderated by "Hardball's" Chris Matthews and featuring syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, live from Texas Southern University, a historically Black university in Houston, Texas. The two-hour special event on Martin Luther King Day will explore some of the most pressing and provocative issues connected to race and race relations in the U.S.

t was the genius of the Republican polling and image spinmeisters that turned this ill-formed and relatively inchoate patriotism into powerful "wedge" issues they could use against the Democrats. From about this period on, whenever the Democrats advanced a reform issue that might improve the lives of average Americans, such as health care, income support for the poor, an increased minimum wages, and many others, the Republicans told this population that, if the Democrats really loved America as much as they said they did, why would they be trying so hard to change it?

Everywhere I turn these days I keep seeing or hearing the words, "No More Excuses." From black self-help book titles to black pundits on CNN, these three words have become the mantra of post-racialism in the Age of President Obama. Whether intended or not, the mantra fuels the belief that because of individual black achievements, we have finally reached the promised land of a color-blind, equal-opportunity America.

In the 1950s, speculators combed white neighborhoods, purchasing property from whites and then reselling them to blacks—at double to quadruple market value. Even worse, they sold these overpriced properties "on contract," that is, on the installment plan. Black buyers made a down payment and were responsible for taxes, insurance, maintenance, and interest, but could lose the property if they missed even one payment. They were forced to accept such brutal terms, since in Chicago as nationally, most banks refused to loan to them; if they wanted to buy at all, they had to buy from speculators.

Given the speculators' inflated prices, missed payments were common, which meant that speculators often evicted their black buyers and resold their properties over and over, growing rich off the life savings of black Chicagoans while impoverishing whole sections of the city. This, not white flight, is why many black neighborhoods in Chicago, and throughout the country, turned into slums.

Race and ethnicity are much in the news these days, propelled by the nation's first African-American president, first Latina nominee to the Supreme Court and increasingly diverse schools and workplaces. But although diversity is becoming more apparent common does not mean it's easy to embrace. Luke Visconti, of DiversityInc magazine, discusses cultural sensitivities, offering tips on what not to say to white colleagues.

"The New South," wrote journalist Robert Scheer in the 1970s, "is the Old South with air conditioning."

Unfortunately, even 30 years of central home air hasn't cooled the white heat of the South.

In the midst of the great Obama victory last November, an overwhelming percentage of white voters in the states of the former Confederacy rejected the first Black president, even as many of them voted down ballot for Democrats.

The South—Old or New—remains the heartland of opposition to all things progressive, posing a formidable threat to the new administration's agenda.

For instance, every southern Republican senator voted against Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The dependable opposition to health care reform lies centered in the South and will remain so.

I am a retired Christian minister and I love the Church and the people who make it up. But, when Christians are confronted with an increasing amount of public criticism from non-Christians it becomes important to understand why this negataive assessment exists. What follows is a list of some of the reasons that non-Christians have problems with us.

• A lot of Christians come across as superior to others. "We are right; you are wrong." Especially when we say "you're going to hell" if you don't believe like me. Reason comes second to believing Scripture and cultural teachings.

• Christians, in general, believe in a cosmology which seems ignorant to most of the world. Heaven up above, hell down below and us in between just doesn't cut it.

• Same thing for God sitting on a throne up in heaven with Jesus at his right hand. We need to come to an understanding of God which has more spiritual depth.

• The Bible was written in a time when cultural assumptions prevalent that no longer make sense. Miracles, supernatural interventions, having a god come down from heaven and walk among us. It just doesn't fit modern cultural understandings.

• The Church has been an abuser of people: look at the child molestations. That stuff brings about a lot of distrust.

• Christians make claims about the Bible that are demonstrably false, but when some discrepancy is pointed out, Church scholars rationalize an explanation that just doesn't make sense.

• Christians claim to be the only true religion in the world. What a claim!

• Christians try to ignore the separation of church and state: ten commandments in public places, prayers in school, teaching religious topics in public schools.

• Arguing that "Creationism" and "Intelligent Design" should be taught on the same level of credibility as the theory of "evolution". There is room in our understanding for both Biblical and scientific conceptions to be workable--if we do not insist that the Scriptures are literally true.

• Believes that all people are born bad, and they can be made good only by believing Jesus died to make them good.

• Christians continue to segregate, for the most part, on racial, sexual orientation and class distinctions.

• Non-believers, like atheists and freethinkers, are often ridiculed and ostracized.

• Many Christians think that they can "believe" in Jesus and behave any way they wish; their belief saves them.

I don't expect Christians to give up most of their beliefs or customs; but, it would help tremendously if we would become a little more humble and not be so aggressive in trying to foist our understanding on others. I do expect many Christians to oppose much of what I have said. We have many diverse undrerstandings within the Christian faith.