Category: Racism

why some people be mad at me sometimes

they ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and i keep on remembering mine ~Lucille Clifton, “why some people be mad at me sometimes,” from Blessing the Boats, New and […]

Margaret Walker on Poverty and Racial Conflict

Chapter 5 of Margaret Walker’s Jubilee could be read on its own as an essay. It carries some of the narrative threads of the novel, but it also offers a history lesson as well as […]

It's easy if you try

The “Black Jesus” episode of Good Times is one of my most memorable childhood television experiences. It ranks right up there with the Pearl Harbor episode of The Waltons for TV that taught me something. […]

Elizabeth Cottage:  A Place out of Time

I grew up cash poor and opportunity rich.  Maybe you won’t even know what I mean unless you too grew up in this way.  Some people are born poor without anything to offset the mental […]

Racism Doesn't Want to Look at Itself

Socrates might have us believe that the unexamined life is not worth living, but plenty goes unexamined in this life.  Or maybe we know it is there, and we look at it from time to […]

Ole Miss vs. The Klan as Clown

Thanks to the Huffington Post, I found this video of last week’s so-called Klan rally at Ole Miss. Watch it. Watch it through to the end. Ole Miss probably has the longest and most painful […]

Racism Doesn't Know it's Racist

I was eleven years old before I understood that the N word was offensive.  I’ve told this before to friends, and some have denied that this is even possible, but it was the 1970s in […]