Four books that have been long out of print by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be published again under a deal with Beacon Press brokered by King's youngest son.

In a statement, Dexter King called the deal "an historic partnership."

"Beacon Press will be a dedicated public outlet for his work and will help bring his urgently needed teachings of nonviolence and human dignity, and his dream of freedom and equality to a new global audience," said Dexter King, chairman of his father's estate.

President Obama...admitted that the Muslims all over the world were denied certain “rights and opportunities.” He admitted that Muslim-majority countries were treated as “proxies without regard to their own aspirations.” He also underscored the failure of the Muslims in coping with “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization.”

“This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” asserted the President. Peace-makers must be empowered. A new beginning must be ushered in between the US and the Muslims. He vowed to fight against the negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appeared. Brave words. The President’s speech unfolded a brave vision. One hopes that Obama will be able to translate his grand vision into reality.

Speaking about the negative stereotypes of Islam, Obama referred to similar stereotypes of America. Unfortunately America has earned these stereotypes by what it has been doing in the last few decades in many countries, just as Islam has earned its stereotypes by its actions. No one can deny what Obama says about the liberal attitudes of America towards diverse cultures, races, religions and languages. “[T]here is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1200 mosques within our borders,” said the President.

Several pairs of eyes follow the girl as she pedals around the playground in an affluent suburb of Baltimore. But it isn't the redheaded fourth grader who seems to have moms and dads of the jungle gym nervous on this recent Saturday morning. It's the African-American man—six feet tall, bearded and wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt—watching the girl's every move. Approaching from behind, he grabs the back of her bicycle seat as she wobbles to a stop. "Nice riding," he says, as the fair-skinned girl turns to him, beaming. "Thanks, Daddy," she replies. The onlookers are clearly flummoxed.

Annapolis, Md.: Marc, what is this nonsense about using "PG" to refer to Prince George's Co. is disrespectful? Our local paper, the Annapolis Capitol, uses AA for Anne Arundel Co., QA for Queen Anne Co., KI for Kent Island, but always spells out Prince George's. Doesn't the County Commissioner have better things on which to spend is time?

Marc Fisher: It's always mystified me. This is a real phenomenon--as far back as I can remember here at The Post, we've regularly received calls--often angry ones--from readers who live in Prince George's and, for some reason, deeply resent having the name of their county abbreviated in exactly the same way we might abbreviate the District (DC) or Anne Arundel (AA). They claim that it's a racial matter, a sign of purportedly deliberate disrespect. There's nothing wrong with an abbreviation if it's generally understandable, but for many years, this paper and many other media outlets have been cowed into submission by the allegation of racial prejudice. Seems absurd to me...

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy - the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, far fewer black and white Americans say they view racism as "a big problem" in American society than said so in mid-1996, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

...In the new survey, 44 percent of blacks and 22 percent of whites continue to see racism as a large societal problem. In 1996, 70 percent of blacks and 52 percent of whites held that view.

Conversely, 28 percent of whites and 15 percent of blacks in the new survey said they see racism as a small problem, or no problem at all.

Despite the drop in those seeing racism as a big problem in the country, just as many see bias in their communities as said so in 2003, before Obama burst onto the national scene. Overall, 47 percent of Americans -- including nearly two-thirds of blacks and 43 percent of whites -- said they think blacks in their communities experience racial discrimination.

Meanwhile, more than four in 10 Americans said they have been discriminated against. Nearly three-quarters of blacks said that was the case, as did three in 10 whites.

"What I'm trying to do is say, 'No, let's see if we can apply empathy and recognize that America probably has a narrower spectrum of differences than any other advanced country,' " Obama said. ". . . Let's focus on what we have in common."