Erin Aubrey Kaplan

Erin Aubrey Kaplan – Erin Aubry Kaplan is a Los Angeles journalist and columnist who has written about African-American political, economic and cultural issues since 1992. She is currently a contributing editor to the op-ed section of the Los Angeles Times, and from 2005 to 2007 was a weekly op-ed columnist, and the first Black weekly op-ed columnist in the paper’s history. She has been a staff writer and columnist for the LA Weekly and New Times Los Angeles. She is a regular contributor for many publications, including Salon.com, Essence, Black Enterprise, BlackAmericaWeb, Ms. and the Independent. She is also a regular columnist for make/shift, a quarterly, cutting-edge feminist magazine that launched in 2007. She won the PEN Center West award for journalism in 2001 for an LA Weekly piece, “Blue Like Me,” a personal exploration of the link between depression and the racial struggle. Kaplan is the author of “I Heart Obama,” a personal and cultural exploration of President Barack Obama as a Black president, Black icon and Black folk hero. I “heart Obama is her book