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It's Time We Had an Angry Black President
The president has been talking some new talk. He should keep it up, and even step it up. Obama rode in on his vaunted oratorical abilities, but the kind of ability we fell in love with him for is no longer of any use. The calls for unity, the echoes of Martin Luther King Jr.,…
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Why Talking About Race Is Pointless
So suppose we did it? Suppose we Talked About Race as so many say we do not? Desmond King and Rogers Smith have just said, to great acclaim, that neither major party has wanted to talk about race much since the 1970s. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley’s Poverty Tour is nominally about the poor, but…
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Some White People Will Never 'Get It'
I found one response to a piece on The Help that I wrote last week quite interesting. It was from a white man, a film-critic sort, somewhere past 50, who was annoyed at my asking why people are dismissing The Help as if it were a remake of Imitation of Life. Get this: What bothers…
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Stop Philly Flash Mobs: End War on Drugs
So what do you say about young black men in Philadelphia taking the subway downtown to find white people to beat up? There are two standard responses, one more sophisticated than the other one, and both useless. I have a better one, but first let’s look at why we have to let the typical ones…
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Blue-Collar Jobs Can Save Black Middle Class
More bad news for black people. We’re being told that there will be ever fewer public-sector jobs as city and state governments cut back while making do with less. Because employed black people are overrepresented in government jobs (20 percent compared with 15 percent for whites), the impact on middle-class black employment will be worse.…
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John McWhorter Responds to Swerdlick on Cain
David Swerdlick may think I am right about just one thing, but he’s right in his response about almost everything. He is wrong in only one: his reading of the intention of my piece from Monday, “Herman Cain and the Sadness of Black Folks.” I meant a single thing: Herman Cain’s popularity with a healthy segment…
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Herman Cain and the Sadness of Black Folks
“Oh, I think we’ll always be a sad people,” a black woman said to me in 2001. She was very smart, very well-informed. And that remark seemed utterly ordinary to her. It didn’t to me. Why would any people always be sad? Or, why would a people willingly embrace such a prediction? I think of…
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What the Harlem Renaissance Teaches About Gay Rights
One more thought on the idea of homosexuality as wrong, in light of New York state’s legalization of gay marriage last week. The historical perspective is useful in two ways. One is to show how things used to be. The other is to get a sense of how today is going to look when it…
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Let's Stop Blaming the Bible for Our Homophobia
I stopped even peeking at “comments” sections a long time ago, like many writers. However, in the wake of a piece I did on the controversy over homophobia among black comedians, rappers and others, I have been pointed to some comments sections by other people writing on the subject, and have made an exception and…
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Why Won't Obama End the War on Drugs?
The Obama administration’s deafness to the growing chorus of opposition to the senseless war on drugs has become so appalling that you almost start thinking Cornel West was right. About Obama’s supposed lack of interest in black concerns, that is. I know that’s not actually the problem: the president has to prioritize. With the economy…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
