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The War Within
The question nagging at me comes out of a very animated panel discussion on Martha’s Vineyard last summer that dealt with that perennial hot-button issue of race in America: Do we have to talk about “group culture” when dealing with the status of blacks in America? One panelist insisted that black culture was deeply implicated in…
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The Fat Tax
The state of Alabama has issued a warning to its state workers: Get fit or pay up. In August, the Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board approved a plan that will charge workers an additional $25 to cover their insurance premiums, if they don’t take advantage of free health screenings available to all state employees. The…
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The 'Real American' Test
I have been living outside of the United States for the better part of five years. So imagine my surprise when I returned in September, to find that we are now making Americans prove that you are a “real American.” It is no longer enough to just have a valid passport and driver’s license, or…
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The Future of Africa: Soyinka and Gates
At 74, Wole Soyinka remains one of democracy’s great champions on the African continent. The adage “criticism, like charity, starts at home,” has long been a favorite truism of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright and political activist. Sadly, there remains much to criticize, as political turmoil, ethnic warfare, graft and corruption continue to plague his home…
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North Carolina's New Blues
The Queen City Motel sits barely noticed on this city’s West Side, just seven minutes from the wobbly banks and new construction projects commanding the downtown skyline. At the Queen City, you find people who are living by day and by week, watching economic calamity from the outer edge of misery. Some have no cars,…
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Will White People Riot?
“Would black people riot if Sen. Barack Obama didn’t win the election?” That was the question a white man in Memphis recently asked a racial reconciliation group with which I am involved. After five years of being a columnist for the daily paper in Memphis, I wasn’t surprised by the absurdity of his query. Many…
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Where are the Folk in Folk Art?
Each year, Steve Hessler and Dolly Vehlow make a pilgrimage from their home in Washington, D.C., to the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Northport, Ala., to chat with old friends and buy art. Since the 1990s, the couple has purchased pieces from Mose Tolliver, Charlie Lucas, Yvonne Wells and Betty Sue Matthews, a cadre…
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Go Long…Please!
Baseball fans outside of the fan bases of the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies should have an intense rooting interest in the World Series that starts tonight. They should be rooting for a long series. Six- and seven-game series are the ones in which both teams can envision victory, and it is where…
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Why Jews Should Vote for Obama
On Election Day, the relationship between Jewish-American voters and Barack Obama will be like a big midterm in a graduate course on coalition politics. It’s a trust walk between the Democratic Party’s two most reliable constituent demographics and a test of the bond between two minority groups that have marched arm-in-arm at times and feuded…
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Barack Obama Can Do Three Whole Pull-Ups
This picture of presidential hopeful Barack Obama doing pull-ups in Missoula, MT was taken by the photographer Callie Shell for Time magazine last April. I like it! Shell has snapped an entire collection of wistful shots of the great black/white Hope from Illinois, some grand and sweeping, others mundanely human. Just like those ones of…