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People of color shouldn’t have to obliterate their presence to receive fair home values
Another case of likely racial discrimination in housing appraisals has cropped up, this time in Baltimore. The New York Times recently reported a Black husband and wife first received an appraisal of $472,000. After they “whitewashed” their home – removing family photos and having a White colleague stand in for them as the “owner” – […]
Update from Virginia: Medicaid expansion’s positive impacts are significant and come as no surprise
Veteran newspaper people in Detroit taught me the saying, “No (rhymes with spit), Sherlock,” when I was a young journalist back in the early 1980s. The profane phrase – I can’t do it justice in a family publication – was used to refer to a headline or story stating something so obvious, so predictable, that […]
Veteran Virginia journalist on new race-based traffic stop statistics: “Do you believe us now?”
“Do you believe us now?” That’s what Black people are saying across Virginia about the way people of color are stopped, sweated and searched by law-enforcement officers in the state. Often based on racial profiling. Often due to nothing more than a whim. First came the now-viral video of two Windsor patrol officers and their […]
Momentum to legalize marijuana continues to build…as it should
[Editor’s note: The following commentary by veteran Virginia journalist Roger Chesley was written after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s recent announcement of his intention to push for an end to marijuana prohibition in the state, but prior to today’s historic vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to end federal criminal penalties. It was initially published […]
The troubling consequences of rugged individualism in a pandemic
Americans can be a selfish lot. Not everybody, of course. But too many people couldn’t care less about taking the necessary steps to keep deaths and infections from COVID-19 at bay. It’s not that hard: Stay at home as much as possible. Wear a mask out in public and in buildings. Wash your hands. Avoid situations where you can’t stay at least six feet apart.