Karen Grigsby Bates

is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times (Doubleday).

About Come Correct

Manners and mores in modern life? It's about way more than where the fork goes.

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In-your-face observations of art, entertainment and the world at large from someone who cares. Can you handle the truth?

NOVEMBER 30 | NBC Heroes Employee Says There's Too Much Diversity in Hollywood

NOVEMBER 29 | Black Conservative Doesn't Want Oprah to Interview Obama on Christmas

NOVEMBER 28 | Peru Apologizes for Mistreatment of Afro-Peruvians

One man's opinion on very nearly everything. It's hard but it's fair.

DECEMBER 2 | Ten Things You Could Learn from Tiger Woods

DECEMBER 2 | Aunt Jemima and Politics in Darktown

NOVEMBER 24 | Meet The Parents

Manners and mores in modern life? It's about way more than where the fork goes.

DECEMBER 3 | Desiree Rogers' Teachable Moment

NOVEMBER 28 | The Tipping Factor

NOVEMBER 24 | The Turkey Is The Least of It

From finance to foreclosures, layoffs and lack of opportunity, a daily journal of the economic crisis and its effect on black professionals.

NOVEMBER 27 | Making The Most With Less This Christmas

NOVEMBER 25 | Young, Black, and Out of Work

NOVEMBER 24 | Have Blacks Been Shafted By The Stimulus?

Smart, up to the minute takes on politics--from the state house to the White House. Pull up a chair.

FEBRUARY 23 | Social Networks and Saddam Hussein: A Private Matter?

JANUARY 21 | Hillary Clinton Stands Up For Internet Diplomacy

JANUARY 20 | SATISFACTION, PRIDE OR DELIRIUM?

Engaging commentary, interviews, and reviews that delve into and beyond the world of books. Get read.

NOVEMBER 25 | Conversation for the Dinner Table

NOVEMBER 19 | Reading List: The Poetry Edition

NOVEMBER 12 | Publishing with the Stars

A daily conversation on hot topic culture items. From Zora to Zane, True Blood to Tiny & Toya, TEWW covers high art, low-brow culture and everything in between.

MARCH 2 | The Best Gabourey Sidibe Interview So Far

FEBRUARY 17 | Would You Let Serena Williams Do Your Nails?

FEBRUARY 12 | John Mayer's Stupid Mouth

KAREN GRIGSBY'S BLOG ROLL

Character Counts

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out." Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

And that's for good or for bad things. What we do unobserved or when we don't have to in some measure defines who we are. So to pick some pretty mundane (but not unimportant) examples, I'd say character is:

*Picking up what fell down, even if you didn't drop it.

*Returning the change when the cashier miscounts, gives you too much and doesn't notice.

*Rising to give a seat to someone who needs it more than you, even when you're tired and you're not sitting in one of those sections that's priority seating for the elderly, disabled, etc.

*Admitting fault, even when more people than you were involved.

*Being generous with sharing credit with coworkers, even when you did the bulk of the work on the project.

*defending the powerless, even when it's not your problem.

*Congratulating a friend or colleague who got the promotion, mate, financial windfall you were hoping to get.

Abraham Lincoln once observed "Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

What's YOUR definition of true character? Waiting...

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