Black Women’s Equal Pay Day highlights a 65-cent wage gap, but the real issue runs much deeper. Guest columnist Levi Perrin breaks down why true equity requires dismantling systemic barriers, investing in Black women entrepreneurs, and fully valuing caregiving.
Opinion
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Posted inOpinion
Caitlin Clark has become a weapon against Black women, and Congress is enabling it
In the Opinion piece A.R. Shaw shares how, political figures are inserting themselves into WNBA officiating, raising urgent questions about racism, player safety, and the ongoing culture war targeting Black women in sports.
Posted inOpinion
Black women’s next breakthrough starts with one another
Deidre Johnson argues that the future of Black women’s leadership depends less on corporate promises than on women investing in one another. Through mentorship, she says, Black women can expand opportunity, challenge bias, and help transform hope into expectation.
Posted inOpinion
Freedom Is an Act: A Reflection on America at 250 Years
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Temporary Protected Status isn’t just about immigration, writes Dr. Sharon M. Holder in this op-ed. It’s a moral test of who America chooses to protect as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary.
Posted inOpinion
S.4390 is a direct attack on women-owned businesses, Black women will pay the highest price
WORDPRESS EXCERPT
A bill in Congress would eliminate the Women-Owned Small Business federal contracting program, a move MaKee Company CEO R. Lynn Pingol warns could strip $540 billion in revenue nationally and $2.2 billion from the Twin Cities alone.
Posted inOpinion
A Metro car photo became a portrait of Trump’s America
A Reuters photo of a Black woman surrounded by masked Patriot Front members on the D.C. Metro became the defining image of America’s 250th birthday. In an op-ed, Joseph Williams traces the moment back through a century of organized white intimidation.
Posted inOpinion
Obama still lives rent-free in Trump’s head
As Trump defends a thin Iran agreement, Obama opened his presidential center in Chicago surrounded by cultural icons and former presidents. In an op-ed for Word in Black, Joseph Williams argues the contrast says everything about legacy and grievance.
Posted inOpinion
Knicks fans want them to wear tan suits to the White House
A fan collective wants the New York Knicks to show up at the White House in tan suits, an homage to the 2014 Obama meme moment. Greer Marshall makes the case for why it’s less silly than it sounds.
Posted inOpinion
Professor: Stop casting Black Brits who disrespect Black Americans
David Oyelowo’s comments on Black British actors playing Black American icons sparked backlash. Contributing writer Lawrence Ware argues the criticism is fair, and the roles should go to actors who understand the culture.
Posted inOpinion
College Wasn’t Built to Be a Marketplace. But We Turned It Into One, and Inequality Is the Price
Higher education increasingly operates like a market, and markets don’t correct inequality, they structure it in. Andrew G. White IV, PhD, examines how prestige, pricing and the retreat of race-conscious admissions shape who gets access to opportunity.
Posted inOpinion
A Federal Rule Change Threatens Minnesota’s Small Businesses. Especially the Ones Our Communities Depend On
R. Lynn Pingol writes that a proposed OMB rule change would strip away the supplier diversity programs, technical assistance and SBA 8(a) pathways that small Black, immigrant and women-owned businesses depend on to access federal contracts, threatening the corridors communities rebuilt after years of crisis.
Posted inOpinion
When Black communities lose their vote, schools pay the price
EdTrust president Denise Forte argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is not only a voting rights threat but a direct attack on educational equity, warning that reduced Black political representation weakens communities’ influence over school funding, curriculum and opportunity.
Posted inOpinion
Stigma, misogynoir, and the burden of “going high”
Behavioral health researcher Dr. Sharon M. Holder writes that the recent smear against Michelle Obama is not an isolated incident but a textbook example of how stigma and misogynoir function, and calls on America to stop expecting Black women to go high simply to survive.
Posted inOpinion
Juneteenth, America at 250, and the hole in the soul of our democracy
Wade Henderson argues that the denial of congressional representation to more than 700,000 Washington D.C. residents is a national civil rights issue, not a local one, and calls on Congress to pass D.C. statehood as part of the unfinished work of American democracy.
Posted inFrom the Publisher
Juneteenth is a day of joy, and a day of reckoning
MSR CEO and Publisher Tracey Williams-Dillard reflects on the meaning of Juneteenth in a political moment that is testing the durability of hard-won freedoms, and reaffirms the Spokesman-Recorder’s commitment to bearing witness to Black life in all of its complexity, grief and glory.
Posted inOpinion
By the time he is fourteen
Contributing writer De’Vonna Pittman writes about watching the world watch her Black grandsons at a water park and asks the question America rarely does: what happened before the moment we decide to pay attention to Black boys?
Posted inOpinion
Shame About Being Abused Silenced Me. Now, I’m Speaking Up
Jacqueline Patterson, founder of The Chisholm Legacy Project, shares her personal experience as a survivor of intimate partner violence and calls on Black women to break the silence and on communities to say something when they sense something is wrong.
Posted inOpinion
Breaking the stigma: PTSD, masculinity, and the burden Black men carry
Behavioral health researcher Dr. Sharon M. Holder writes that Black men and men of color are carrying a disproportionate share of the mental health crisis, with rising suicide rates and undiagnosed PTSD rooted in systemic racism, and calls on communities to break the silence that has cost too many lives.
Posted inOpinion
License plate readers can help keep our communities safe this summerÂ
Sanneh Foundation executive director Tony Sanneh makes the case for license plate reader cameras as a practical public safety tool that can help law enforcement respond faster, deter crime and protect communities during the busy summer months.
Posted inYour Voice Matters
Your Voice Matters: The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Wants to Know What You Want to Read
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