As a general rule, one should regard with a mountain of salt anything to be found on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Committed to the promotion of right-wing economics and social policy, and unburdened by such mundane requirements as fact checking, the writers of the Journal’s daily screeds have long taken liberty [...]
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Thirteen years ago, when I first started out on the lecture circuit, speaking about the issue of racism, it seemed as though everywhere I went, someone wanted to know my opinion of Louis Farrakhan. To some extent, this was to be expected, I suppose. It [...]
Not long ago, after I had written an article in which I discussed white denial–the tendency for most white folks to reject the notion that racism is still a significant obstacle for people of color in the U.S.–I received an e-mail from a white man who insisted that my argument was itself racist. His reason? [...]
Somehow I knew it would happen. In fact, I had even made a note to myself, indicating how long I thought it might take: twenty-four hours was my guesstimate, in case you’re interested. Turns out I was overly optimistic, because it only took about nine hours from the time that my latest essay hit cyberspace–a [...]
“Everything you said in there was so insulting to me.” The words came harsh and unexpected. I had just given a speech on racism and white privilege at an upstate New York college, and was nearing the end of an after-event reception, when the young woman–who had been seething with anger, waiting to confront me–finally [...]
The electronic messages I receive from overt racists would be hilarious were they not so sad, so indicative of an inability to do basic research, interpret data once discovered and then fashion an intelligible argument. That the American educational system is failing may be a matter for open debate, but on this score–its success or [...]
“So now what do you have to say, smartass?” I can think of better ways to be greeted in the morning, but sadly, this was how my day began a few weeks ago, upon opening my e-mail browser and piecing through the messages that had accumulated overnight. The author of the above missive was wanting [...]
“The price the white American paid for his ticket was to become white…This incredibly limited, not to say dimwitted ambition has choked many a human being to death here: and this, I contend, is because the white American has never accepted the real reasons for his journey. I know very well that my ancestors had [...]
Sometimes it seems as if there are people who sit around, almost hoping for awful things to happen, just so they can use these incidents, however tragic, to make some kind of political point. So consider the evangelical preachers who responded to Hurricane Katrina by claiming that the tragic inundation of New Orleans occurred because [...]
Consider a few things that have happened in the past month-and-a-half, in no particular order: First, comedian Michael Richards goes on a racist tirade at an L.A. comedy club, screaming the n-word at two black audience members, over and again for several minutes. Then, white students at four entirely different colleges dress up in blackface [...]
