rant
August 15, 2009
- A Book and a Chat that nearly never was Saturday as many of you know is my Book and a Chat Radio Show. Normally it starts at 11:00 and I check about ten minutes before to make sure connections, microphone phone etc is working correctly. The you as the host dial into Blogtalk radio, set up your switchboard and wait for your guest or anybody else who wants to chat to arrive.This morning however, ...
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July 29, 2009
- It is understandable that honest and decent people may disagree about the circumstances surrounding the arrest last week of Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Cambridge. For some, Gates was to blame for what happened. He became belligerent with Sgt James Crowley, and thus precipitated his arrest on charges of disorderly conduct. Others point out that being belligerent to an officer does not meet the legal ...
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July 22, 2009
- Surely by now you've heard the news. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (who TIME Magazine has named one of the most influential persons in the United States, and who is arguably the most cited black scholar on the planet) was recently arrested. This, after breaking into his own home, in Cambridge, Massachusetts when, upon returning from a trip to China, he discovered his front door damaged ...
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July 9, 2009
- On the one hand, racism is so deeply embedded in the history and structure of the United States, that it shouldn't be particularly surprising when a story emerges, indicating that indeed, that racism has bubbled to the surface yet again. But on the other hand, sometimes a story finds its way into the public realm, which is of such a profoundly disturbing nature, that you can't help but do a ...
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May 31, 2009
- The murder today of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas confirms what many of us have long known. Among those who call themselves pro-life, there are plenty who are anything but. They are terrorists, plain and simple, who seek to subordinate women to the religiously fanatical, patriarchal dystopia of their theocratic fantasies. At best, they are pro-fetal life. They love the pre-born but could care less ...
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May 11, 2009
- Envision the following, if you can.Imagine that a group of black youth were to descend upon a college town, take to an open field and proceed to smoke pot--lots of it--just as they had announced they would, at the very time they had promised to be there. Thousands of them, lighting up, virtually daring police to enforce the law and arrest them.Now, in such a scenario as this, how long do you ...
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May 4, 2009
- In ancient times, when plagues or widespread epidemics would descend upon a community, it was somewhat common for those in the vicinity of the crisis to offer up a sacrifice, presumably to the gods, in order that the problem might dissipate. Often, the sacrifice would be a lamb (thus, the phrase sacrificial lamb), or a goat, from which practice we derive the concept of "scapegoating." ...
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March 18, 2009
- As someone who writes regularly on the subject of white privilege, I am often electronically attacked by those who insist that the very notion of such a thing is a mere figment of my imagination: well, mine, and that of all the other "race hustlers" out there. "Don't you know that millions of white people are poor?" they typically ask, suggesting by virtue of the question that ...
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February 25, 2009
- It was all too predictable that Attorney General Eric Holder would be attacked for his recent remarks about race in America. To suggest that the nation is still haunted by the specter of racism is unacceptable it seems, especially since, with the election of President Obama, we have ostensibly entered the "post-racial" era.But in truth, the nation's chief law enforcement officer ...
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February 16, 2009
- Imagine if you will a 40 year old black male, coming through security at Boston's Logan airport. He's looking a bit younger than his middle-aged self, due in large measure to the clothes he's wearing: a black hoodie, jeans and sneakers. These seem, at least in his mind, to balance out the creases and crevices that occasionally appear on his face, hidden though most of them are beneath his beard. ...
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