Kai Wright gives his take on Colorlines on the controversial angle of last weekend’s high-profile commencement addresses.

Graduation season is upon us, and with it the time-honored ritual of big, important graduation speeches. This weekend, Barack and Michelle Obama each gave theirs at historically black colleges — the president spoke at Morehouse, the first lady at Bowie State. This is a fabulous thing on its face. And both talked explicitly about race and opportunity.

The problem is that both also continued a pattern we have too often been forced to examine — using the world’s largest bully pulpit to browbeat black people for the personal failings that the Obamas seem to believe are our largest challenge.

In both speeches, the Obamas veered into finger-wagging lectures about personal responsibility’s triumph over structural inequity. The president issued now-familiar urgings for black people to stop making “excuses”—a plainly strange demand to give a room full of young people who are celebrating a big, hard achievement. The first lady told us even our dreams are insufficient, that black kids must fantasize about being successful professionals rather than celebrities. You’ll not find similar themes in their speeches to non-black audiences.

This is familiar stuff, of course. From Booker T. Washington through to Bill Cosby, there’s always been a deeply conservative strain of black politics that embraces the American ideal that we get only what we earn. That we dwell on racism and inequity at our own peril, because America helps those who help themselves. That we bring the white man’s scorn down upon ourselves with our sloth. Pull up your pants and turn off that darn rap music! You look like a hoodlum! That kind of thing.

Read Kai Wright’s entire piece at Colorlines.

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The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson gives perspective on the Associated Press scandal.

The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists’ phone records, perusing their e-mails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news. This heavy-handed business isn’t chilling, it’s just plain cold.

It also may well be unconstitutional. In my reading, the First Amendment prohibition against “abridging the freedom … of the press” should rule out secretly obtaining two months’ worth of the personal and professional phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, including calls to and from the main AP phone number at the House press gallery in the Capitol. Yet this is what the Justice Department did.

The unwarranted snooping, which was revealed last week, would be troubling enough if it were an isolated incident. But it is part of a pattern that threatens to redefine investigative reporting as criminal behavior.

The Post reported Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone and e-mail records for Fox News reporter James Rosen, and that the FBI even tracked his movements in and out of the main State Department building.

Read Eugene Robinson’s entire piece at the Washington Post.

The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.

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“She was just a big ball of energy; she was lovable. You couldn’t not love her,” her father said in a heartbreaking interview. “She was loved, and she was love.”

From the Huffington Post:

Ja’Nae’s grandmother confirmed to KOCO 5 on Tuesday that the family was informed at 9 a.m. that the girl’s body was at the medical examiner’s office. KOCO 5 also noted a conversation a reporter had with the family Monday night, as they continued to search for her:

Nine children and 24 people total have been confirmed dead as of Tuesday afternoon. According to Reuters, seven of the deceased children died at Plaza Towers Elementary School. The 2-mile wide tornado left hundreds more injured, and the death toll may continue to climb.

Read more at the Huffington Post.