Uncategorized
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God Don't Like Ugly
I can’t wait for Nov. 4. It’s not just because I’ll finally be casting a ballot in my first presidential election (though, don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty friggin’ stoked about it). But really, I’m in tip-toe anticipation of that first Tuesday in November, because I’m hoping, hoping hard, that on Election Day, all the…
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House of Race Cards
I don’t know why anyone—myself included—ever let themselves think that a black man could run for president of the United States without igniting the sort of racial backlash we’re witnessing in the current campaign. I don’t know why anyone—myself included—ever believed that the Republican Party would forego its time-tested, coded appeals to prejudice and character assassination…
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Changing Beauty
Isis strikes a pose. Couture, not commercial. Her face alone is vogue—café au lait, high cheek bones that say high-fashion. Her pouty lips prove to be the perfect accessory to her doe-eyed smile, catching the light at every turn and tilt of the head. Her long legs slice through the air with precision. She is…
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On Thin Ice, Together
Unless you’ve been under a rock (or a hurricane) the last three days, you know about Wall Street’s meltdown. What many people don’t get is exactly what impact it might have on their personal finances. That’s understandable since it’s easier to believe that what happens to rich investment bankers is unrelated to our own efforts…
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An Appetite for Hunger
To most everyone, the prototypical sufferer is an insecure, sickly-thin, young, white woman who looks in the mirror and sees a fat girl. It is Karen Carpenter, singing the sad songs of the 1970s as she starved herself and finally died in 1983. It is so many Hollywood actresses, splashed across magazine covers, their pretty…
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Black Male Suicide
Not long ago, suicide and African Americans were almost never mentioned in the same breath. Despite confronting challenges from slavery to Jim Crow to structural racism, blacks rarely took their own lives. It was a positive health disparity. Until now. There is alarming evidence that the suicide rate for young African-American men is escalating, and…
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We Are All Wasillans Now
I’m an Alaskan. I grew up in Wasilla. Sarah Palin was my mayor. She explored the idea of banning books at the library where my parents taught me how to read. There have been many interesting pieces of journalism introducing my gun-toting, moose burger-eating former neighbors to the rest of the country, and most have…
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Black Family Seeks Nanny
Some women think their kids can do no wrong, while others are brutally honest: “My kids are a pain,” began Rebecca Land Soodak, in the advertisement she recently posted on craigslist, in search of the perfect nanny for her Manhattan-based family of five. “If you cannot multitask or communicate without being passive aggressive, don’t even…
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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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Chicago Hope
Cross-town rivalries are an essential part of baseball lore. During the ’50s, the World Series often came down to a matchup between the Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants and the New York Yankees. The Bay area has had its two teams, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s battle in the World Series in…