Quit Playing Nice, Obama - Just Get Things Done

By: Deborah Mathis

I am loathe to give President Obama my two cents’ worth on practically any topic because he and his key advisors are conspicuously savvy - Exhibit A being the very fact that he is President Obama and not “former presidential contender” Obama. That took some strategic chops that I don’t have.

So, I will present my advice as a “wish,” as in, “I wish President Obama would get off this bipartisanship kick and use his political advantages to do what he know he needs to do.”

Quit Playing Nice, Obama - Just Get Things Done....

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

What do you get the commander in chief who has everything? The Root readers suggest gift ideas for President Obama's 48th birthday.

By: The Root Staff

This year, Barack Obama celebrates his birthday in the White House as president of the United States. But, Michelle Obama and the first kids will be hard-pressed to find the right present for the commander in chief who has everything. The Root readers recommend a few gift ideas for the POTUS as he turns the big 4-8.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!....

'An Accident of Time and Place'

By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

I would like to applaud President Obama for bringing Sergeant Crowley, me and our families together. I would also like to thank the President for welcoming my father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., who for most of his life has been a Republican! My dad turned 96 this past June, and the fact that he worked two jobs every day is the reason that my brother, Dr. Paul Gates, and I were able to receive such splendid educations. I am honored that he chose to join me at the White House, along with my fiancée, my daughters, and my brother.

'An Accident of Time and Place'....

Gates Says 'Yes' to Beer With Crowley

In a statement to The Root, the Harvard professor says he would meet with the cop who arrested him, as President Obama has suggested.

By: The Root Staff

Statement from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"It was very kind of the President to phone me today. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color.

Gates Says 'Yes' to Beer With Crowley....

Who's Afraid of Bibi?

It used to be that the hard line Jewish right could torment Democrats who did not follow their pro-Israel playbook. Not anymore. President Obama and Jewish moderates are providing cover.

By: Dayo Olopade

Before Rep. Donna Edwards, of Maryland’s Fourth Congressional district, traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time in May, she hadn’t thought much about minorities in the Jewish state: “As an African-American woman, I really didn't have a perception of a significant minority population in Israel, and there is,” she told the Washington Jewish Week, adding that minority rights in Israel are “a work in progress.”

Who's Afraid of Bibi?....

In Obama, America’s Got the Intelligence We’ve Been Awaiting

By: Deborah Mathis

You don’t have to share the religion to appreciate the salient effect President Obama’s words had on the Muslim world in his address from Cairo University last week. They should have resounded with the oppressed, suppressed and distressed the world over, but particularly with Arab and African adherents of Islam.

By speaking honestly, frankly yet appealingly, the president treated the Muslim community not as subjects to be directed nor as children to be scolded, but as equals. Different in custom and tenets, but equal. It is a quality he has shown with the American public as well – to treat us as thinking adults, not quivering lemmings.

“I am convinced that, in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors,” Obama said to a packed auditorium and an international television audience. “There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another and to seek common ground.”

A far cry, for sure, from “Either you’re with us or you’re against us.”

In Obama, America’s Got the Intelligence We’ve Been Awaiting....

Mad the President Isn't Identified as Biracial? Get Over It

By: Gregory P. Kane

A word of advice to those white people who resent President Obama being called black: Please get over it!

The latest whiner was a letter writer to the Baltimore Sun. (Make that what’s left of the Baltimore Sun; owner Smilin’ Sam Zell and Tribune Company mismanagers continue to run what was once a great newspaper into the ground.) As a white American, she wrote, she resented the constant reference to Obama as black. He’s “biracial,” she insisted, with a white mommy and those white grandparents who lived out in Kansas.

I rolled my eyes and chuckled as I read the woman’s whimpering screed. “Now, this character knows that if Obama were an ax murderer and not president of the United States, he couldn’t be black enough for her,” I said to myself, then added, “So, the one-drop rule has finally come back to bite white folks in the butt, has it?” And it has.

Mad the President Isn't Identified as Biracial? Get Over It....

Nothin' But a G-20 Thang

With their European road trip almost over, President Obama and the first lady are clearly a huge hit around the world and the Europeans are going to have to deal with it.

By: David Swerdlick

The condensed history of the Western world goes something like this: Achilles slays Hector, Charlemagne conquers Saxony, Anne Boleyn, Martin Luther, Waterloo, May Day, Versailles, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and Queen Elizabeth II hugs Michelle Obama.

Can you say “road trip”?

Halfway through their trip to the G-20 summit, NATO and beyond, it’s safe to say that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle are still a hit around the world even if the president’s policy approach for the damaged global economy is not.

For Obama, all it took was the frank but subtle concession that yes, “some of this contagion did start on Wall Street,” to reassert that the United States would be leading a “strong, coordinated response to growth.” Between his remarks and some off-the-cuff banter with India’s Times reporter Simrat Ghuman, Obama left them “still walking on air.”

Nothin' But a G-20 Thang....

We Need a Hero: If Only Superpowers Were Real

By: Tonya Pendleton

In today’s economy, acts of heroism are sorely needed. But these days, people are so limited by circumstances or struggling so hard to make ends meet that they have little time or energy left over for anything else. What if you could apply the power of black superheroes to the world’s problems?

Admit it: you’ve watched the “X-Men” movies or read the comics and wondered what would happen if you, too, could change the weather. Or you’ve read the Luke Cage series and wished you could have the superhuman strength of one of Marvel Comics’ most powerful black superheroes.

While our wish to transform into superheroes will most likely remain fantasy, we're wistfully looking at some of our most popular black superheroes and determining what use they might have in today’s troubled world. President Obama could most certainly use a few on his side, but these days, almost everyone could use a superhero in their corner. Check out our list.

We Need a Hero: If Only Superpowers Were Real....