The disclosure that more than 4 percent of Blacks in the District of Columbia have HIV, matching San Francisco's citywide rate at the height of the epidemic in 1992, is but one example of how the disease is devastating the Black community. D.C. health officials made public a report Monday that showed the overall HIV/AIDS city rate of 3 percent is three times the level considered a "generalized and severe" epidemic. . . .

The most frustrating aspect of cervical cancer is that it is almost completely preventable. Experts know that it is caused by "high-risk" types of a common infection – the human papillomavirus, or HPV. And we now have available preventive technologies, including the Pap test, the HPV test and the HPV vaccine, to help stop this disease in its tracks.
Despite these advances, why are so many women still dying? There are two key problems.
First, women need access to screening. In the U.S., approximately half of all cervical cancer cases are in women who have never been screened. Minority women and those with lower incomes are less likely to have access to screening programs and consequently, are affected by cervical cancer at higher rates. . . .

When the full story is finally told, and though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in the memory of Lovelle Mixon, the man who, in a horrific shootout in which he was finally killed, shot five Oakland police officers, four of whom have died. They will then say to themselves, "But for the grace of God I could have been he." . . .

Today, there are about 38 million Americans over the age of 65. In just 20 years, thanks to the rapidly aging baby boomer generation, that number will double.
That's why long-term services and support must be a fundamental part of healthcare reform. The structure of our current system makes caring for seniors and disabled adults fragmented, difficult and expensive. . . .

As the whole world witnessed, we have made history with the swearing in of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America. But this election was about more than the significant and historic act of electing the first African American to the highest office of the land. It was about average citizens taking back the political process from the Washington elites. . . .

I was watching the periphrastic pundit, actor and neo-economist Ben Stein on CBS Sunday morning pontificating. He said that if President Obama offered more happy talk, more conviction that times would get better, then they would. 
I was watching him just a few minutes after I had a conversation with a sister who lost her job the same week her husband did. They were confident that they could make it through three months, thanks to savings, but didn't know what would happen to them after that. Stein wants happy talk, sister wants a job. . . .

Glenn Loury, a professor in the Department of Economics at Brown University, has long been one of the nation's most outspoken Black intellectuals. 
For many years he was a leading conservative voice on topics like affirmative action, and whenever he focuses on a policy issue affecting the Black community, people pay attention. In his title essay in the recent book, "Race, Incarceration, and American Values," Professor Loury sounds the alarm on some of the same concerns the Children's Defense Fund has been raising when we talk about the pipeline to prison crisis. . . .

Since taking office, President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act which will create millions of jobs, increase and extend unemployment insurance, and subsidize health care coverage for nearly five million unemployed Americans. President Obama also challenged all of us that for this new era to be successful, it will require service, sacrifice and faith of all Americans. . . .

"Can you find me a lawyer in the United States?" asked Aswad, an uneducated, poor farmer from a remote region of the Syrian countryside believes that in America, justice can be served. He believes that in America no one is above the law.
I met Aswad in a Damascus café in the fall of 2008 after learning of his story from a humanitarian aid worker. He confided in me the hell he had endured as a pawn in the "War on Terror" and convinced me of . . .

During this Black history month the nation and the world anxiously watch the living Black history that is taking place with the first African American president. Yet at this very same moment the future of Black America is in an exceedingly precarious condition . . . .