Politics

You have to admit: Whether the spectacle is staged or genuine (I lean toward the latter), it is pretty ironic to see the Fox News Channel’s crew of media personalities gang up on National Public Radio in defense of Juan Williams, the man who regularly makes Bill Kristol reach the point of verbal explosion on…

Just when it seemed that this country’s home-foreclosure crisis couldn’t get any worse, Bank of America made a stunning announcement on Oct. 1: The nation’s largest consumer bank was halting foreclosures altogether in 23 states (later expanded to 50) after reports came out that it and other banks had “robo-signed” thousands of affidavits confirming that…

By Michael A. Fletcher For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent — a part of history, yet absent from it. When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in…

Is Juan Williams a bigot? Probably not. Should National Public Radio have fired him for his anti-Muslim comments on Fox News? Not this time. No doubt Williams’ bosses at NPR hated it when he was introduced several times each week on Fox News as “NPR’s Juan Williams” — last year they asked him to stop…

By William Saletan Shirley Sherrod, meet Juan Williams. Three months ago, right-wingers clipped a video of Sherrod to make her look like a racist. They circulated the video on the Internet, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture fired her. Now it’s happening again. This time, left-wingers have done the editing. They clipped a video of…

It was well before daybreak a few weeks ago when I got a call from the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. “White, you need to get over here right away,” Buckwheat insisted. “I’m being stalked.” When I arrived a few minutes later, Buckwheat was hollering into his telephone. “How many times does I have to…

is a former columnist for TIME magazine and a regular contributor to The Root.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Rahm Emanuel was supposed to receive a hero’s welcome in the black community when he announced his candidacy for mayor of Chicago. After all, he was chief of staff for the first black president of the United States, who happened to be the cool former congressman from Illinois! Plus,…

Horseback-riding Teddy Roosevelt might have done a double take were he allowed to gaze from his “Rough Rider” portrait in the White House at the 44th president of the United States, fielding a range of questions about his executive policies from 10 black newspaper columnists sitting around an oblong table. This uniquely nonwhite all-American scene…

Is it conservative to criticize hip-hop? Recently I wrote an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal in which I expressed a feeling of deep disappointment and frustration that Barack Obama would show appreciation — without qualification — for rappers such as Lil Wayne and Jay-Z. I argued that the president can and should listen to…