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Nationally Syndicated Columnist, Chicago Tribune
Nationally-syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and author of Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity
PROFILE
Clarence Page
Guest
FROM Clarence Page
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Hillary Clinton, Kendrick Lamar and Race Last night at the Grammy Awards, Kendrick Lamar gave an electrifying performance about being black in America. He came on stage shackled in chains, wearing prison blues, while his band performed behind bars. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver a big speech on race in New York today. Both she and Bernie Sanders have had to address issues facing African-Americans and minorities as they compete in more racially diverse states. Mass incarceration, police brutality, inequality, Ferguson … the list looms large in this election. We discuss it all with two guests.
To the Point
Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy in Tucson's Shadow Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down on April 4, 1968, but today is the day we recognize him. His message is especially poignant against the recent incident of gun violence and apparent attempted assassination in Tucson, Arizona. Clarence Page is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune .
To the Point
The Attack Media and the Reverse Race Card Finance Reform, the extension of unemployment benefits and possible tax cuts have been overshadowed this week by a false charge of reverse racism. President Obama has telephoned former Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod about her summary firing after a right-wing website released a misleading video. When Andrew Breitbart released the excerpt from Sherrod’s speech, Fox News played it big. But even Fox has confessed to overplaying a story it failed to check out. The New York Times admits that "other media" were under pressure to follow up. Do Americans live in different worlds, according to their sources of information? What are the lessons about white anxiety?
To the Point
Harry Reid Accused of Racism, Time for Another Beer Summit? The new book Game Change , about the 2008 presidential campaign, quotes Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid describing Barack Obama as "a light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." The Nevada Senator has apologized to Obama, who says "the book is closed" on Reid's attitudes about race. But some Republicans, like GOP Chairman Michael Steel, who called the comments " racist ," don't want it to go away. Clarence Page is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
To the Point
Presidential Candidates' Tangled Roots on Slavery Today's Baltimore Sun reports that ancestors of John McCain and John Edwards owned slaves—as did the family of Barack Obama . That's according to genealogical research and census records. Obama's father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. Two ancestors on his mother's side owned two slaves apiece more than 150 years ago. Obama's spokesman told the Sun his ancestors are "representative of America." Syndicated columnist Clarence Page, author of Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity, has more on the legacy of slavery and the presidential campaign.
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Left, Right & Center
How was the trip? President Trump's travels got less fun as he went from the Middle East to Europe.
To the Point
Human Rights in the era of Donald Trump President Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said today the US might pull out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Serious violators of human rights are members of the Council itself–and a US resignation could make things worse. Later on today’s show, now that he’s into his second term, comedian turned US Senator Al Franken is telling jokes again.