Margaret Kimberley

‘Does al Shabab Pose a Threat on American Soil?’ So read a headline in the New York Times’ blog, Room for Debate. Despite its name, Room for Debate rarely shows any true differences of opinion on whatever issue of the day is considered significant to the Times’ editors.

“Thousands of inmates, mostly black, languish in prison under the old, discredited ratio. Like slavery and Jim Crow laws, the intentional maintenance of discriminatory sentences is a denial of equal protection.” – Sixth District Court of Appeals

What would a hypothetical person know after diligently reading the newspaper, watching television news and reading online news sources for the past week?

The Obamas' visit to South Africa, for people of colour on both sides of the Atlantic, is heavy on symbolism and photo-ops, but devoid of any substance for those who hunger and thirst for justice.

If terrorism can be defined as the wanton killing of innocent people, then there are many terrorists around the globe. Most of those terrorists are not members of al-Qaeda, al-Shabab or other organizations whose names the corporate media repeat ad nauseam.

Americans suffer because of a longstanding, deliberate and conscious effort to either obfuscate or to tell outright lies about their nation’s history.