Published on Counterpunch.org, 8/2/05 Growing up in the South, I often heard folks criticize others for being “common.” To be called common was to be vilified as trashy and unworthy of respect. Putting aside the elitist implications of such a slur, the pejorative nature of the term has always stuck with me, so much so […]
Published as a ZNet Commentary, 7/19/05 Recently, Philadelphia became the first American city to require its high school students to complete a course in African American history as a condition of graduation. And predictably, in the “City of Brotherly Love,” there is already an outcry of opposition from certain whites, who comprise less than 20 […]
Published on Counterpunch, www.counterpunch.org, 6/15/05 During my days as a college activist, organizing against U.S. and corporate support for apartheid, I can recall the way in which many students, despite agreeing with the goal of our coalition (namely, divestment from firms that were complicit with the racist government in South Africa), refused to sign any […]
Published in the Black Commentator, 6/2/05, Issue 140 According to government estimates, between two and three million cases of housing discrimination take place each year, victimizing persons of color who seek to either purchase or rent a place to live (1). This discrimination takes several different forms, some of which are blatant, and others of […]
Published as a ZNet Commentary, 5/25/05 As soon as Oklahoma University’s baseball coach Larry Cochell was fired recently, for using the n-word during off-camera conversations with two ESPN reporters, I knew instinctively what some were likely to say. Though I am far from psychic, it hardly required clairvoyant ability to see what was coming. Sure […]
Published in The Black Commentator, May 19, 2005, Issue 139, www.blackcommentator.org “It’s the crime stupid!” Thus read the first line of an e-mail I received a few weeks ago. This particular love note came from someone who had run across an old article of mine in which I had discussed racism in the criminal justice […]
May 11, 2005 HOST: Greetings everyone and welcome once again to another episode of Live with the Infidel Guy. I am your host Reggie Finley and I’ll tell you what, we’re going to have a very interesting program tonight. I’m a little nervous, actually, about this program because I have no idea how this is […]
Published in the Black Commentator, 5/5/05, Issue 137 Whenever I write an article about racism, or give a speech concerning the ongoing reality of discrimination in the labor market, I am assailed by those who refuse to believe what virtually any study done in the past two decades confirms: namely, that people of color are […]
Published as a ZNet Commentary, 4/19/05 Perhaps it would do us some good to put things in perspective. Although many a white conservative is seeking to make more of it than is justified, the recent “reverse discrimination” case arising from New Orleans — in which the city’s first black D.A., Eddie Jordan, apparently fired 53 […]
Published in LIP Magazine, Spring, 2005 It almost goes without saying that the analysis offered up by mainstream commentators in the wake of the Presidential election has been largely devoid of anything resembling substance: not that this should be considered particularly shocking, but it needs to be mentioned in any event. For example, the persistent […]
