It’s official. The symbolic head of the Republican Party is not Ronald Reagan. It’s Pee-Wee Herman. It was Herman after all, as portrayed by comic actor Paul Reubens, whose only comeback to every criticism was, “I know you are but what am I?” And it is this mantra — this maddening, childlike, playground-worthy, makes-me-wanna-slap-you-in-your-damned-face mantra […]
Forget Barack Obama’s praise for legal scholar Derrick Bell. Never mind his decades-long association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Neither of these connections will matter once you get a load of what I’ve uncovered: a linkage between the president and someone at least as radical if not more so than either of those. A man […]
Here is my just released essay for CNN, addressing the subject of “What is ‘post-racial’?” What is Post-Racial? Reflections on Denial and Reality Short (for me), but to the point and easily digested, with hyperlinks to sources provided…
This commentary is rated MA for mature audiences. It contains some foul language, although honestly, only so much as is needed to get the damned point across. Parental discretion is advised… Attention to all self-proclaimed liberals and progressives. I would like to properly introduce you to a man about whom you’ve heard much — especially […]
This essay appeared on Colorlines, under a different title. _________ It’s been a rough year for Martin Luther King Jr., and for his legacy. First, as has become an annual ritual, politicians went to church or some other civic gathering for last year’s King Day celebration, even as they continued to support public policies that […]
Perhaps it’s no great surprise that Glenn Beck would distort Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message, as he did when he held a rally for mostly white reactionaries on the 47th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in August, all the while suggesting that the group was “reclaiming the civil rights movement.” After […]
It has been said that even the devil can quote Scripture for his purposes. So too, apparently, can conservatives quote Martin Luther King Jr. for theirs. To wit, Glenn Beck, who has perfected the craft of cribbing from Dr. King, thereby debasing the majestic prose of the latter and distorting King’s intentions to the point […]
To be angry with Glenn Beck would be easy. So too, to conjure an ungenerous spirit of contempt for his acolytes who came from around the country to attend Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this Saturday, would hardly take Herculean effort. His demented narcissism and their cult-like devotion to the man who once said he was […]
As the nation gears up for Glenn Beck’s absurdist rally in DC Saturday — on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington — and as he continues to lie about and distort the way in which conservative philosophy is in line with Dr. King’s teachings (and thus, how it is appropriate for them to […]
Prominent white conservatives are angry about racism. Forget all that talk about a post-racial society. They know better than to believe in such a thing, and they’re hopping mad. What is it that woke them up finally, after all these years of denial, during which they insisted that racism was a thing of the past? […]
