The senselessness alone would have been sufficient. So too the sheer horror. The devastated families, the tapestry of their lives ripped apart, would have been more than enough to make the events at Sandy Hook Elementary almost too weighty to bear. Much as they were more than a decade before at Columbine, or in any […]
For a while now we’ve known that there were significant numbers of white Americans who wanted to “take their country back” to some mythical period of the nation’s hagiographic past. We’ve known it because they’ve told us so, as often and endlessly as their lungs will allow. Little did we realize, however, that for at […]
By now, you probably know the shameful details, but they are worth repeating, in any event. On the evening of February 26, George Zimmerman, a self-appointed “neighborhood watch captain” in an Orlando suburb, shot and killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin. Because Martin was black. And no, don’t even think of rolling your eyes at the […]
Here is a brief video clip from my recent appearance at a fundraiser for Community Change, in Boston. I am discussing the recent Newsweek cover story about the recession and “beached white males,” and the way the authors missed the real story. It’s not that white men are the hardest hit in this recession–they aren’t […]
Had they not long ago demonstrated their capacity for sociopathy, Nazis would prove amusing. Amusing and not at all threatening or worrisome, sort of like those people who dress up their dogs in fancy sweaters when the weather turns cold, or those who enjoy pilates. But as it is, Nazis (and note, I am using […]
And so the craziness continues…amid a number of violent acts committed by devoted followers of Glenn Beck over the past year, now comes additional evidence that the Beck-Heads are an unstable bunch, willing to threaten anyone their silly little clown of a leader chooses to target for criticism. A few days ago Beck criticized the […]
Imagine for a moment that any Democratic Party candidate, especially a black or brown one, were to invite members of the Bloods, Crips or MS-13 (a notorious Salvadoran-American street gang) to attend one of their campaign events, or to provide personal security for that candidate during an interview. Or imagine that the candidate of color […]
Once again, I’ve fallen behind on posting (and comment approval — sorry about that), but am trying to catch up and post a bunch this coming week, along with a few new essays. In the past week or so there have been several interesting stories and/or articles, bouncing around the web, that touch on race. […]
In all the rancor over whether or not one group of Muslims should be allowed to build a cultural center and worship space near the site of the 9/11 attacks — which were committed by a separate and totally unrelated group of Muslims — there is one thing above all else that no one appears […]
Painful to watch, but necessary: this is evidence of the clearly low standard that white folks set for ourselves when it comes to elected office. No person of color could be this damned incapable of stringing words together and get elected to anything. But for us? No problem…In Brewer’s case, for someone who is so […]
