Let us now praise competence. The praise is overdue. Competence is like the dull, but reliable husband a woman spurns for some sexy stranger with a flashy car. Then she finds out her new fellow has the manners of a pig, the depth of a wading pool and absolutely no interest in helping her study […]
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: A movie that is more than a masterpiece
The film surprises you with vast silences. It is an emptiness that at first seems jarring to sensibilities trained to believe every moment must be crammed. By contrast, this movie takes you into moments of pregnant stillness: no movement on the screen, no dialogue, no swelling music to cue your emotions. At one point, the […]
advertisement
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Celebration will most likely be short-lived
Yay. Yippee. Woo hoo, even. It was a nick of time rescue, like when Polly Pureheart is whisked off the railroad tracks right before the train comes barreling through, or the correct wire is snipped and the bomb timer stops counting down with just seconds left. Last week, hours before a historic default, Congress finally […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Carson statement a cheap, rhetorical stunt
In 1865, American slavery ended with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Since that time, these things have happened: In 1871, fire destroyed the city of Chicago. In 1896, the Supreme Court legalized segregation. In 1906, an earthquake leveled the city of San Francisco. In 1929, the stock […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Take time to look up, occasionally
The thing might be funny, except that somebody died. That part isn’t funny at all. But the rest of it, the moments before Justin Valdez was killed, read like some twisted skit on “Saturday Night Live.” You have to get the picture as captured on surveillance video and described by authorities in a story published […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Obstructionism has consequences
Welcome to America Held Hostage. The reference is not just to the ongoing government shutdown that theoretically could be — but in all likelihood won’t be — over by the time you read this. Rather, it is also to the intransigence and extremism of the Republican Party, a brand of government-by-crisis political thuggery that made […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Racial, class differences still evident
It was the suddenness that shocked me. This is one night 22 years ago. I had just moved to Miami and was visiting Coconut Grove for the first time. I remember being charmed. The side streets were lined with cozy bungalows. On the main streets there was light and music and an air of bohemia […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: A breath of fresh air from the Vatican
A few words on the new pope. Since ascending to the papacy in March, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio has managed to surprise and impress the religious and irreligious alike by living a brand of faith seldom seen on the public stage. Pope Francis insists on carrying his own bags, living in a simple apartment […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: America’s promise shattered
A couple months ago, I got an email from Supreet. Supreet is in the 11th grade. He shops at Wal-Mart and plays basketball. His father came to this country from India and both are Sikhs, followers of a centuries-old faith founded in the Punjab region. Supreet wanted to tell me what it is like being […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Leonard Pitts: Stand up, speak out, tell the truth
“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” — attributed to Mohandas Gandhi As Dan Savage tells it, it began years ago when he’d go on CNN or MSNBC to discuss LGBT issues opposite the likes of Tony Perkins. Perkins heads the Family Research Council, a […]