President Trump canceled the invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles for a White House ceremony, apparently because, according to one source, no more than five players were planning to come. Why should the players come, especially the black ones, when last fall Trump had called them sons of bitches, and as a result … [Read more…]
Among the many legitimate complaints about Roseanne Barr’s latest racist rant, one is illegitimate. That complaint is that Roseanne violated the premise of her television show—to show America what Trump supporters are like. When the Roseanne show was brought back to television the mainstream media—including the entertainment media— characterized the new show as trying to … [Read more…]
Trump’s presidency is worse than we predicted. We knew that he did not know much about how our government operates and that he knew even less about how international relations work, making it almost impossible for him to do a good job. George Will, that reliably conservative columnist, told us that not only did Mr. … [Read more…]
President Trump is making the federal judiciary more right-wing and less qualified. Trump may not be getting much legislation passed; however, he is adversely affecting the course of American history with his appointment of federal judges. In addition to flagrantly blocking President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, the Republicans in the Senate blocked … [Read more…]
The mainstream media are enabling Donald Trump and many of his supporters. They have led the way in proclaiming the great lie about the 2016 presidential election. Despite plenty evidence to the contrary, the media continue to proclaim that Trump won because of the economic anxiety of the white working class. In other words, they … [Read more…]
Many issues limit the progress of African Americans today. Here I will address two that get too little attention. 1. One is the denial of the history of racial oppression by whites 2. The other is the reluctance of African Americans to talk about that racial oppression. Most whites acknowledge segregation; however, many typify it … [Read more…]
“A fraud on the American public.” That is how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. In 1990, this solid conservative was expressing the widely held consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum. Nowadays those words seem quaint, as an … [Read more…]
The Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech, which I direct, recently held its seventh annual Combating Racial Injustice Workshop. We examined one of the continuing areas of injustice—the so-called juvenile justice system. Despite a drop in overall arrest rates nationally, black youth are still twice as likely to be arrested as white … [Read more…]
He would be very active and pushing others to join him, on the same issues he was fighting at the time of his death–the three major evils as he called them: the evil of racism, the evil of poverty, and the evil of war. In this time of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s … [Read more…]
Many people are preparing to observe the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. As we do so, let us remember his actions and his words in 1968, “I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose … [Read more…]