Eric Wattree

I get so tired of hearing black critics of President Obama claiming that the black community only supports him because he is black. If I...

News item: “Activists Najee Ali and Earl Ofari Hutchinson accused of working with LAPD to arrest Ferguson Protestors” My immediate reaction was: Wow. This was a serious allegation, especially considering both gentlemen’s history of steadfast support of the black community. I began to research the website. Who would make such a charge?

We have to wage a fierce battle against the ugliness in this world, but we must resist the urge to profile and become ugly ourselves. This battle is not about black people against white people. Or civilians against police. It is good people against bad people.

Subsequent to last Tuesday’s runoff election for LAUSD’s District 1 School Board seat, where Dr. George McKenna defeated Alex Johnson, aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Alex Johnson, the journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson said it was "scary" how close the election was (53 to 47 percent). He attributed this to ...

Three of the most tenaciously destructive problems endemic to the black community are political apathy, a lack of education and the self-serving corruption of some politicians and so-called "community leaders." The Aug. 12 race for the First District seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board has revealed conclusively that County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and his new young crony, Alex Johnson, are the embodiment of all three problems.

No one can deny that racism is holding the black community down. But it is not just white racism – rather, the racist attitudes some black people have against other black people. Black people are the product of the same racist environment as white people. The weaker-minded among us are as racist towards other black people as any sheet-wearing hillbilly. I call it ...

A few diehard Cornel West supporters seem to have taken great exception to my article, "A Portrait of Cornel West - The Liberace of Faux Intellectualism." They asked, who am I who has the audacity to criticize the illustrious Dr. West, and what have I done for the black community?

White conservatives often criticize black people for being too quick to play what they call the race card. On the other hand, many black people criticize America for not being sensitive enough to the reality that race plays in American life. George Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin clearly validates the black community’s point of view. Trayvon Martin is dead for no other reason than that he was...

I was on the corner of Vernon and Central the other day, just after school let out. Had it not been that I grew up in that area and recognized my surroundings, I would have thought I was in Mexico.

In any tribute to Dr. King, we also celebrate the African American culture – a new culture, conceived in pain, delivered into turmoil and baptized in a sea of deprivation. We celebrate a culture only now in the spring of its development, yet a culture that has managed to combine the wisdom, strength and spirituality of its African origins with the sophistication, knowledge and creative intellect of its new- found home. One week after King Day, let us...