Search results for: “quotemedia/f”
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Stirring the Melting Pot
As our country prepares to make history next week, I have been thinking a lot about race. My father came to America from Bangladesh to pursue his education and a better life, just like Obama’s father. He expected that hard work would be rewarded. Like other immigrant families we rarely discussed race; it was assumed…
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The Black QB Scramble
Chris Rock has a classic bit in his 1999 HBO special “Bigger and Blacker” where he documents his father’s obsession with Robitussin as a cure-all remedy. “Daddy I got asthma! Robitussin. I got cancer! Robitussin. I broke my leg! Daddy pourin’ Robitussin on it.” When it’s time for me to ponder the complex and nuanced…
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Hendrix Lives
Defined by the chaos of a presidential campaign under literal siege, an unpopular foreign war and the compound tragedies of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the year 1968 was a pivot point in the national life—the year America almost stopped being America. Part of that upheaval was cultural. The…
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The MILFy Way
Homespun. Folksy. Straight-talking. These may be just a few of the endearing terms pundits have used to describe Sarah Palin. But there’s another, more salient, tag floating around the Alaska governor, a secret weapon that was on winkin’ and twinklin’ display during the debate. Few Beltway commentators would dare call this stealth device by name,…
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Distract, Distort, Demagogue
f nothing else, the sycophants genuflecting to the McCain-Palin presidential campaign are experts at creating diversions. When things go bad, they call out the troops to fill the airwaves with misdirection. Or they heave Hail Mary passes, hoping to connect with their easy-to-anger supporters. In fact, they’ll do just about anything except admit to the…
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The Pain Beneath the Swagger
“I was never depressed. […] I just want to tell everybody I’m fine. I’m good. It’s a blessing to play the game that I love.” —Vince Young In case you didn’t know already, black boys don’t cry. Tears just don’t go with the brand. African-American males are encouraged to be fearless, cocky and impervious to external…
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Trading O.J.
On the day of his induction into Pro-Football Hall Of Fame in 1985, O.J. Simpson should have said to the crowd in Canton, Ohio: “Thank you guys so much….This is great,” then turned, taken one last look at his old life, draped his yellow blazer across his broad shoulders, hopped on his spaceship and flew…
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Talking Points
Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention contained sound-bite-worthy lines that would be replayed long after the ovation subsided. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America,” he said. Despite his greenness—Obama had never before used a teleprompter—the reaction was titanic. Bill Clinton waited with throngs…
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Obama in Berlin
When I moved to Berlin eight years ago—in the wake of a rash of neo-Nazi attacks against foreigners of color—I wondered if people stared at me because they didn’t want me in their country. I suspected men who came on too fast were merely toying with a fetish. I thought the cold, standoffish manner from…
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Barack, Here's How to Get the White People
Is America ready to elect a black president? We’ll find out in November. Barack Obama’s candidacy poses an unprecedented sociological experiment. Everything about us, including how far we’ve come toward the creation of the more perfect union in which people are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin,…