Editorial Director
New York, NY
Kai Wright is editorial director of Colorlines.com and an Alfred Knobler Fellow of The Nation Institute. His investigative reporting and news analysis appears regularly in The Nation, The Root and The American Prospect, among other publications, and he is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and in other broadcast media. His work explores the politics of sex, race and health. He has closely covered the foreclosure crisis and the ensuing economic collapse.
Kai is author, most recently, of Drifting Toward Love: Black, Brown, Gay and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York. He is also the author of two books of African-American history: The African American Experience: Black History and Culture Through Speeches, Letters, Editorials, Poems, Songs, and Stories, and Soldiers of Freedom: An Illustrated History of African Americans in the Armed Forces, which explores America's struggle with race as it has been dramatized by the need to staff a viable military.
You can follow Kai on Twitter at @kai_wright, or look for him in his Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn neighborhood. For more information, check out KaiWright.com.
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Wanna Help Make New York City a Just Town? Here’s How
by Kai Wright on April 25 2012, 8:45AM
Colorlines.com editor Kai Wright will join a remarkable celebration of grassroots organizing on May 8—and he’s asking the Colorines community to help him support that vital work.
Topics: Kai Wright
Is ALEC on the Ropes? As Companies Flee, Critics Target IRS
by Kai Wright on April 23 2012, 11:37AM
Another bad day for the secretive conservative group that’s spread pro-corporate and Tea Party-style legislation around the country. Common Cause challenges its tax exempt status.
Topics: /NOW Blog, Politics, Schools & Youth
Taxes, Poverty and Predatory Lending—a Knot That’s Finally Unraveling
by Kai Wright on April 18 2012, 9:25AM
Throughout the so-called boom years, poverty was good business for tax preparers and the banks that financed their deceptive “refund anticipation loans.” That shady market is finally collapsing, but have banking regulators learned anything from it?
Topics: Economy, Kai Wright
Rep. Bobby Rush Kicked Off of House Floor for Wearing a Hoodie
by Kai Wright on March 28 2012, 12:16PM
The Illinois Democrat sought to make a point about officialdom and its idea of who is and isn’t legitimate. Mississipi Republican Greg Smith, presiding over the session, made the point for him.
Topics: /NOW Blog
You Got a Problem? Well, Now You Do
by Kai Wright on March 27 2012, 10:11AM
Trayvon Martin was just 17, and maybe he hadn’t yet put together his strategy for dealing with life as the object of America’s nightmares. So he improvised and got killed. But he had it coming; he was born black and male in the U.S.
Topics: Criminal Justice, Kai Wright, Trayvon Martin
White House Emails Detail Its Role in Pushing Out Shirley Sherrod
by Kai Wright on March 9 2012, 4:34PM
Speaking of Andrew Breitbart smearing important black people, Associated Press reports today on 2,000 pages of Obama administration emails over the Shirley Sherrod debacle. According to AP, the emails show the White House engaged significantly with Agriculture Department officials’ discussion…
Reality Returns: Huge Black Job Gains Disappear in February Report
by Kai Wright on March 9 2012, 10:47AM
The sudden, sharp drop in black unemployment that set economists buzzing in January appears to have in fact been so much statistical noise. The February 2012 job numbers are out and black unemployment went right back up, to 14.1 percent…
Topics: Economy, Jobs Crisis, /NOW Blog
by Kai Wright on March 9 2012, 10:19AM
As rightwing media attempts to smear one of the biggest names in the study of race in America, Colorlines.com invites his students, mentees and those touched by him to chime in and define Bell’s legacy—before Fox News re-defiines it.
Topics: Derrick Bell, Media
There Are Lies, Damned Lies and Andrew Breitbart
by Kai Wright on March 8 2012, 11:31AM
The rightwing hitman’s post-humous attack on President Obama has proven a dud. So his cronies are trying to smear the late, revered race studies scholar Derrick Bell instead.
Topics: Derrick Bell, Kai Wright, Media
How a Racist Email Reveals the Grand Old Party Has Become a Petty Affair
by Kai Wright on March 2 2012, 10:12AM
It’s no great insight to point out it’s a tough election year for the Republican Party. But for all the hours of analysis spent sussing out how the GOP arrived in this place, a federal judge in Montana offered this week what is perhaps the most succinct explanation.
Topics: GOP Primary, Kai Wright, Politics
The Street Corner Wisdom of Foreclosure Fraud: It Wasn’t Me
by Kai Wright on February 16 2012, 9:18AM
The San Francisco County assessor released an audit suggesting that many more demonstrable crimes were committed during the foreclosure bust than we once thought. That’s not a quirk. It’s rampant lawlessness. And it’s by design.
Topics: Economy, Kai Wright
Remember HIV/AIDS? It’s Still Raging in the U.S.
by Kai Wright, Hatty Lee on February 7 2012, 10:13AM
When times are tough, it’s easy to ignore things like health and wellness. We all know what happens when we do that in our personal lives—it comes back to haunt us. Same’s true as a society, and the U.S. AIDS epidemic is proof of that fact.
Topics: Health, Kai Wright
Thank You Don Cornelius, for Your Love, Peace and Blackness
by Kai Wright on February 1 2012, 6:18PM
Soul Train creator and host Don Cornelius is dead at age 75. Go out and celebrate the love of blackness he flaunted for the world.
Topics: Celebrate Love, /NOW Blog
Obama’s Big Shift: Let’s Truly Investigate the Banking Sector’s Crimes
by Kai Wright on January 25 2012, 10:21AM
President Obama said he’s eager to debate equal opportunity in last night’s State of the Union. But he also offered a huge policy change he’s avoided for four years: investigate the banks’ housing boom crimes.
Why the GOP’s Spectacular Collapse Isn’t Good for Social Justice
by Kai Wright on January 10 2012, 10:41AM
Elections are for incumbents all about accountability for the choices they’ve made. And the Obama camp desperately needs a reality check with the reformist voters who bought into it’s message of change four years ago.
Topics: GOP Primary, Kai Wright, Politics
What’s Ahead in 2012? Colorlines.com Writers Weigh in on the New Year
by Kai Wright on December 23 2011, 10:03AM
It’s been quite a year, and we conclude it today at Colorlines.com. From our family to yours, we’re wishing you all health, happiness and love!
Topics: /NOW Blog
Republican Congressman Says Michelle Obama Has a ‘Big Butt’
by Kai Wright on December 22 2011, 1:55PM
Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner told a church gathering that Michelle Obama’s butt is too big, so she has no right leading an anti-obesity campaign. Seriousy.
Our Economy Was Built on Bull. Until We Admit That, We’re Screwed
by Kai Wright on December 21 2011, 10:00AM
We have organized society around a misguided belief in unfettered growth and unrestrained capitalism. The question of 2012 must be how we begin building a society based on something different.
Topics: 2012: What's Ahead?, Economy, Kai Wright
Condi Rice As the GOP’s Vice Presidential Pick? Hey, It Could Happen
by Kai Wright on December 20 2011, 11:55AM
Rumors, rumors. The election’s coming, so might as well start now playing the what-if game.
Ron Paul Takes Lead Among Iowa GOP, Where Voters Party Like It’s 1964
by Kai Wright on December 19 2011, 10:16AM
The Texas libertarian is leading a new poll of Iowa Republicans, stealing the scene from Newt Gingrich. Among Paul’s greatest hits: Bragging that he’d have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Topics: GOP Primary, /NOW Blog, Politics
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