I am running out of words. Some crackpot who couldn’t get a date stabs and shoots his way across the Southern California college town of Isla Vista, killing six people and wounding 13 before apparently turning his gun on himself. This happened Friday night. And what shall I say about that? I mean, I know […]
Leonard Pitts Jr.
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Leonard Pitts: Time to show our veterans some real love
“I want a love I can see. That’s the only kind that means a thing to me. Don’t want a love you have to tell me about. That kind of loving I can sure do without.” — The Temptations, 1963 A few days ago in an airport restaurant, I saw a scene that has become […]
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Leonard Pitts: Jay Z had no options but to take it
What if he had smacked her one? She’s going after him with fists and feet. What if he had defended himself in kind? Or what if he had been the one who attacked her without physical provocation? Would it still be funny? As we all know from a leaked elevator surveillance video that has been […]
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Leonard Pitts: No room for compassion in hyperpartisan America
A hypothetical scenario: Your little boy lies in a hospital bed, stricken by a mysterious, potentially fatal disease. You are frightened and in despair. But your community rallies around you. Soon, the whole town is talking about your ordeal. Neighbors you’ve never spoken to send cards. Co-workers you’ve never socialized with send encouraging text messages. […]
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Leonard Pitts: Justice for all … except those too big for jail
Fair warning: this book will make you angry. “The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap,” by Matt Taibbi, is a volume of stories. Like the Vietnamese refugee and rape victim in San Diego who applied for public assistance, only to be visited by a “welfare inspector” who barged into her home […]
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Leonard Pitts: Extremist Islam scared of little girls
There was a method to this madness. Meaning that night more than three weeks ago when a caravan of trucks and buses descended on a boarding school in rural Nigeria and more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from their beds. As is often the case with acts of terror, this mass kidnapping was accomplished with […]
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Leonard Pitts: A case where morals were conveniently put aside
Why did you do it?” The movie opens with that question. In response, Jayson Blair makes a joke. “This one again,” he mutters, rolling his eyes in mock consternation at the predictability of it. But predictable as it is and as long as he’s had to ponder it, Blair still ends up punting. “I don’t […]
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Leonard Pitts: On race, meet dumb and dumberer
Oh, my Lord, where to begin? You already know what this column is about. You know even though we are barely three sentences in. You knew before you saw the headline. There are days in the opinion business when one story makes itself inevitable and unavoidable, one story sucks up all the air in the […]
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Leonard Pitts: A nation divided, with liberty and justice for some
It swallowed people up. That’s what it really did, if you want to know the truth. It swallowed them up whole, swallowed them up by the millions. In the process, it hollowed out communities, broke families, stranded hope. Politicians brayed that they were being “tough on crime” — as if anyone is really in favor […]
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Leonard Pitts: ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ resonates 75 years later
It was an angry book. Much of the response was angry, too. Some towns banned it, some towns burned it. Every town talked about it. “The Grapes of Wrath” was published 75 years ago this month, a seminal masterpiece of American literature that seems freshly relevant to this era of wealth disparity, rapacious banks and […]