Truthout
The Public Intellectual
Progressive academics address important social issues.
![The Public Intellectual](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2018/01/9116579256_3b2f9b29d0_h-1200x675.jpg)
![Students from William R. Harper High School in Chicago, Illinois, listen as President Barack Obama talks with them about the Emancipation Proclamation hanging in the Oval Office, June 5, 2013.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2009/04/9317456208_5412037b70_k-400x300.jpg)
Youth and the Myth of a Post-Racial Society Under Barack Obama
While “post-racial” may mean less overt racism, the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is an act of willful denial and ignorance.
![Statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse at Disneyland](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2009/04/7927566712_def0b67f77_o-e1529596534199-400x300.jpg)
Disney, Casino Capitalism and the Exploitation of Young Boys: Beyond the Politics of Innocence
The potential for lucrative profits to be made off the spending habits and economic influence of kids has certainly not been lost on Disney.
![Youth's hand grasping fence](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2009/02/shutterstock_1075721525-400x300.jpg)
Locked Out and Locked Up: Youth Missing in Action From Obama’s Stimulus Plan
Young people in the US face a fragile quality of life.
![President-elect Barack Obama and Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, right, talk with students at the Dodge Renaissance Academy Tuesday, December 16, 2008, in Chicago, Illinois. The two met with the students after Obama introduced Duncan as his choice for education secretary.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2008/12/GettyImages-112887784-400x300.jpg)
Obama’s Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling
Unless Duncan is willing to reinvent himself, the national agenda he will develop for education will leave a lot more kids behind than it helps.
![US soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division search for a missing soldier in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan July 19, 2009.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2008/12/3772923560_08c30d3290_o-400x300.jpg)
War Talk, the Death of the Social, and Disappearing Children: A Lesson for Obama
War is now defined almost exclusively as a punitive and militaristic process.
![Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates participates in a promotion ceremony during a visit with the Marine Corps' 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment March 9, 2010, at a forward operating base in Afghanistan.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2008/11/6306730139_65039d2acc_o-400x300.jpg)
Against the Militarized Academy
While there is an ongoing discussion about what shape the military-industrial complex will take under an Obama presidency, what is often left out of this analysis is the intrusion …
![President Barack Obama chats with students during a visit to Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, on October 19, 2009.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2008/11/GettyImages-91990783-400x300.jpg)
Obama and the Promise of Education
The Obama administration will fail badly if it does not connect the current financial and credit crisis to the crisis of democracy and its poisonous undoing by commanding market …