So this driver is stopped at an intersection. A pedestrian is dawdling in the crosswalk. Driver leans out the window and yells, “Get out of the street, you damned liberal!” It’s been years since I read that in a magazine. I can’t remember if it was a true story, though I think it was. But […]
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
To Ben Carson: Slaves were not immigrants
A hypothetical narrative for your consideration: A man climbs through the window of a sleeping girl. She stirs awake and starts to scream, but he punches her with a closed fist. Brandishing a gun, he vows to kill her parents, asleep in the next room, if she makes another sound. She nods in tearful comprehension […]
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Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
People are remembering that facts matter
I’m beginning to feel like Sally Field. Remember the 1985 Academy Awards, when she was stunned by the idea of being accepted? “And I can’t deny the fact that you like me!” she gushed. “Right now! You like me!” I could give the same speech today. I am, you see, employed in an industry that […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
What kind of witnesses shall we be?
There is a strip mall across the street from Auschwitz. From the commandant’s house at Plaszow it’s a short walk to McDonald’s. Belzec is in a residential neighborhood. I didn’t expect that. In 2005, when I joined an interfaith pilgrimage to these camps where the Holocaust happened, it kept surprising me to find them located, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
What happens when fear overwhelms reason
Imagine this. You are a boy, living in a child’s blissful unaware. You are not terribly different from other kids. Maybe you play stickball in the street and pretend to be Joe DiMaggio. Maybe you listen to “The Lone Ranger” on the Philco. Maybe you’re crazy for Superman. Maybe it’s a good life. Then comes […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Lamenting those who don’t value information
“I love the poorly educated!” — Donald Trump “Think! It ain’t illegal yet.” — Funkadelic It’s time we talked about the most consequential political divide in this country. That divide is not between liberals and conservatives. Rather, it is between the ignorant and the informed, between those who have information and can extrapolate from it […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Trump must learn to answer to the people
Dear Mr. So-Called President: So let me explain to you how this works. You were elected as chief executive of the United States. I won’t belabor the fact that you won with a minority of the popular vote and a little help from your friends, FBI Director James Comey and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Terrorism doesn't come in just one color
White terrorism is not as bad as Muslim terrorism. That, believe it or not, was the crux of an argument Sean Duffy, a Republican representative from Wisconsin, made last week on CNN. What follows has been condensed for space, but it unfolded like this: Asked by anchor Alisyn Camerota about the Trump regime’s failure to […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
I had forgotten that I am black
So I had myself an epiphany. Actually, that’s not quite the right word. An epiphany is a moment of sudden clarity, but mine rolled in slowly, like dawn on a crystal morning. I’m not sure when it began. Maybe it was in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was killed and much of America held him guilty […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Trump’s travel ban is a national embarrassment
I have never been more embarrassed for this country. Under the rubric of protecting Americans from terrorism, the Trump regime last week banned travel into the United States by people from seven majority-Muslim nations. And never mind that experts, including the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank, say the combined U.S. death toll in terrorist […]