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Can Our Politics Stop Being Stupid?
Every campaign season brings its own share of frustrations. This one is no different. So now I get to vent. The polls are closed. The outcomes are known (mostly). And the spinmeisters have done what they do. Yet I feel entitled to one final campaign postmortem. In three big ways, I found this campaign season…
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Musings on a Martha's Vineyard Summer
(The Root) — Alas, summer is basically over. We all know it cannot last forever. That break from the routines of work is so important. If you are at all like me, then some quantity time in the sun, without a care for schedules or the time of day, is important to restoring a sense…
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The Turn of the Tide: Clinton's DNC Speech
(The Root) — You gotta believe! President Bill Clinton, simply put, threw down last night at the Democratic National Convention. I say this as someone often troubled by his role in the 2008 presidential campaign. Right now what I can tell you is that, with remarkable eloquence and authority and the right dose of Arkansas…
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Election 2012: The Negativity Crusade
(The Root) — It’s going to get ugly, really ugly. And that’s saying something. The 2012 presidential campaign has already seen its fair share of negative advertising on both sides. We must all prepare to endure a great deal more of it. President Barack Obama finished the convention season with three big pluses: He and…
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Obama's Win: An Inflection Point
(The Root) — For a year I have been telling people that the 2012 presidential contest is far more important than the 2008 election. Yes, in 2008 America elected its first African-American president in Barack Obama. This was a profoundly historic achievement no matter how you figure it. But that outcome, to borrow some apt…
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10 Moments That Made 2012 Great
(The Root) — It is true that I am by disposition too often a glass-half-empty kind of person. So, with some discipline, I cling to the habit of ending each year by making a list of at least 10 things to be thankful for as a partial antidote to pessimism. From this point of view,…
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Are We 'Black No More'? Not Quite
(The Root) — Although 2012 did not produce the Mayan apocalypse, it did produce an unending drumbeat of claims for “postracial America.” So much so, I suspect, that if Harlem Renaissance novelist and essay writer George Schuyler had lived through it, he would be inspired to write a whole new version of his classic novel…
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Slavery on Film: Sanitized No More
(The Root) — Not many films keep me thinking for days on end. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, about a slave-turned-bounty hunter in the antebellum South, accomplished this and then some. As a result, I have to classify it as a great film. A truly great film should stay with you, and Django certainly does. Some…
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Will Obama Go for Greatness This Time?
(The Root) — On the day we officially observe Martin Luther King Day, we will also publicly inaugurate Barack Obama as president of the United States for the second time. (He will actually take the oath of office the day before in order to meet constitutional requirements.) Many people, issues and agendas will be clamoring…
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Obama's Velvet-Glove Inaugural Address
(The Root) — Obama deserves very high but perhaps not superlative marks for his second inaugural address. It had more the character of an inside-the-park home run, not a grand slam. A 9 on my Olympic scorecard, not a full 10. Not a standout, A-plus effort, but certainly a quite solid A-minus. The speech will…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
