Published by Truthdig.com on October 16th, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The Ebola crisis has gripped the American media, and by extension the imagination of the public, punctuated by breathless pronouncements from TV news reporters of the medical status of actual and potential victims of the disease; hysteria-inducing magazine covers, like this issue of Bloomberg Businessweek sporting the message “Ebola Is Coming” in blood- smeared letters; and Facebook feeds dominated …

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Published by Truthdig.com on October 9th, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The recent television kerfuffle involving “Real Time” host Bill Maher and guest Sam Harris over whether Muslims are bad people because their religion is, in the words of Harris, “the mother lode of bad ideas,” is symbolic of the new American Islamophobia.

Muslim-bashing has become a popular sport several times over the last decade and a half, most notably in the …

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Published by Truthdig.com on October 2nd, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

In a recent Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, actress Daniele Watts told her story of a controversial encounter she had with a Los Angeles Police Department officer. It was an incident that garnered much media attention, most of it negative. Although the African-American actress, best known for her role as Coco in “Django Unchained,” was eloquent in defending her actions, I believe it is …

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Published by Truthdig.com on September 23rd, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Editor’s note: This is the second article in a two-part series about the impact of racism on African American men. Click here to read the first installment.

The topic of racism often generates discussions of justice, equality, freedom and human rights. But what about trauma? Although trauma is often accepted as a predictable outcome of war, physical and sexual abuse, and witnessing violence, racism is …

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Published by Truthdig.com on September 19, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The events of this summer in Ferguson, Mo., highlighted an ugly truth to mainstream Americans: Black men in this country are viewed as so suspicious by law enforcement that they are often shot first and questioned later. It is a reality that black men have been living with in the United States since the very beginning.

As of 2010, black American men had the shortest …

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Published by Truthdig.com on September 11th, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

If Hillary Clinton’s latest book, “Hard Choices,” was not an obvious enough sign of her presidential aspirations, then her recent Washington Post review of Henry Kissinger’s new book, “World Order,” seems to have sealed the deal. In it, Clinton builds on her already hawkish tenure as secretary of state to prove she can bang the drums of war harder than President Obama and that she …

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Published by Truthdig.com on September 4th, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

As fast food workers are walking out Thursday yet again for higher wages and the right to union representation, they can count some lawmakers and President Obama as being on their side, verbally championing a higher federal minimum wage. And they have the support of a majority of Americans.

But when it comes to corporate decision makers such as those represented by the U.S. Chamber …

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Published by Truthdig.com on August 28, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The swift takeover by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of parts of northern Iraq and Syria has drawn Western attention back to Syria’s devastating civil war. The grisly beheading of American journalist James Foley seems to have fed the once-declining Western appetite for war, as the Obama administration has approved surveillance flights over Syria in a move that is apparently “a significant …

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Published by Truthdig.com on August 21, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Police brutality against black men has become a shockingly common phenomenon in the U.S. The names of those who have died at the hands of law enforcement or their unofficial vigilante deputies over the past few years are too numerous to count. Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Kendrec McDade, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin are just …

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Published by Truthdig.com on August 14, 2014

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The temporary end to the bombing of Gaza has enabled Palestinian residents to slowly return to normal. But “normal” is defined by a seven-year-long blockade, endlessly frustrating checkpoints, the threat of beatings and arrest by Israeli police, and of course recovering from the loss of nearly 2,000 people and thousands of homes. Today 8-year-olds in Gaza have survived four brutal military operations and know …

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