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The 40-Year-Old Re-Virgin
If you want to meet a real 40-year-old virgin I’m available for interviews. OK, technically speaking, since I have actually had sex, I’m not a virgin. But it’s been 10, long years! Yes, the equivalent of a decade; I didn’t stutter. So, I think my drought makes me eligible for reinstatement into Club Virgin. And…
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A Friend of a Friend in Pennsylvania
I’m indebted to Sam Stein of The Huffington Post for unearthing this YouTube video of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in 1997 showering praises on….drum roll, please…MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN! Yes, Louis Farrakhan, the same Louis Farrakhan about whose links to Barack Obama Hillary Clinton and George Stephanopoulos made such a fuss a few weeks ago. I’ve…
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The Sin of the Reverend
It’s a reasonable question, given the potentially catastrophic damage he wreaked on the Illinois Senator’s White House aspirations with his bombastic performance at the National Press Club this morning. At the precise moment when Obama is facing questions about his ability to connect with white working class voters, Wright chose to put himself back into…
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If They Are So Scared, How Come We're The Dead Ones?
Ida B. Wells, at the turn of the 20th century, called it a “threadbare lie.” She was talking about how lynch mobs masquerading as law enforcement justified their actions by claiming black men were raping white women. But Wells was on to a larger delusion, one that not only inspired sexual hysteria 100 years ago,…
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On Rappers and Rap Sheets
The recent spate of rap stars making criminal justice news will come as a surprise to no one, especially those of you who equate hip-hop culture with prison culture. Nor will it surprise those of us who have accepted the fact that, in the black public sphere, record sales (or any sales for that matter)…
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You Know How We Do
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part II) “Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him” – John Donne Part one of this essay appeared as a blog on Blackprof during the fall of 2007. At that time, the ‘Bell’ in the title referred…
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That Sickening Feeling Again
I am sick to my stomach, and I really do not know what to say. My cell and office phones have been blowing up, and people have been emailing me nonstop because Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, the three New York City police officers accused of shooting 50 times and murdering Sean…
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The Wright Question
PBS is airing the first extended interview with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tonight. Bill Moyer will pummel him with hard questions about his patriotism and the politics of the pulpit, and Wright won’t back away, instead standing firm on his principles. And he should. When I heard that Wright was a UCC pastor, I wasn’t…
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Anger, Anguish, Calm Follow Acquittal.
And God said let there be peace. Thus, in the face of anguish most would find unimaginable, the family of Sean Bell and the people of Queens County gathered early Friday to share solidarity as much as to point fingers. Tensions ran high outside the State Supreme Court in Queens after Justice Arthur Cooperman rendered…
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Don't Think Black Voters Won't Vote for McCain
So my home state of Pennsylvania handed Hillary Clinton a win and a reason to keep fighting to be the Democratic nominee. As I write, Terry McCauliffe is probably on CNN pleading his candidate’s case, facts about her low delegate and popular vote counts be damned. But before Democratic superdelegates get too itchy to snuff…