The New Republic

While Eric Holder has taken Black History Month this year as an occasion to remind us that we haven’t come as far on race as we’d like to think, I see it as a possible tipping point in restoring the reputation of Booker T. Washington.   READ MORE >>

So what does our new Attorney General Eric Holder mean when he says that we are "a nation of cowards" for avoiding "frank conversations" about race?   READ MORE >>

Many years ago, I attended a meeting of a local NAACP branch. It had long been adrift. Its president and general secretary wanted to turn the organization from formulaic protests to issues that actually mattered to the local black community, such as schools and health care.   READ MORE >>

At Barack Obama’s inauguration, John Roberts’s adverb trouble, subconsciously driven by a “blackboard grammar” quest to deflect faithfully from “splitting” the verb execute from the auxiliary will, was a rather gorgeous example of how educated people can be tripped up by unworkable hoaxes about how language works. (“To boldly go where no man has gone before” is “bad” grammar?). READ MORE >>

Barack Obama's inaugural address was the first in a long time to resound powerfully enough to be worthy of marble. However, it was the first in the 220-year history of the custom in another way: its seasoning of black cadence. This was even more exhilarating in that the cadence played an integral part in the power of the oration. READ MORE >>

One does not expect to see New York’s school Chancellor Joel Klein on the same stage as Reverend Al Sharpton. Klein is infamous for his emphasis on test scores and shutting down schools that fail to measure up. Not so long ago, Sharpton was in the barricades with Russell Simmons protesting mayor Michael Bloomberg and Klein’s plan to cut New York City’s education budget. READ MORE >>

Blacks’ heavy support for the proposition banning same-sex marriage in California pointed up an awkward disjunction between progressive ideals and majority black opinion. And, similarly, Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to do the invocation at his inaugural ceremony forces us to attend yet again to the sometimes discomfitingly partial overlap between Blue American bona fides and black authenticity. Discomfiting because to clutch one’s pearls at Warren’s inclusion is to revile a worldview typical among the very race who Obama’s triumph is seen as representing. READ MORE >>

Calling attention to the fact that black nerds are often teased by black peers for “acting white” elicits predictable reactions, such as claims that the problem doesn’t exist. Two reactions I have encountered, however, have thrown me.The first was some years ago, when I was on a panel with Ronald Ferguson of the Harvard Kennedy School. Ferguson, who is black, argued that black nerds should reassure the teasers that they don’t think they’re better than they are. READ MORE >>

The Bradley Effect. “God damn America!” “Kill him!” “Why can’t he close the deal?” “Isn’t he a Muslim?” The “terrorist fist jab.” The New Yorker cover. Michelle’s chimerical “whitey” speech. After all of the aggrieved musings and smug insistences, the deal is done. And now, let’s celebrate. Don’t talk about how Obama didn’t win by enough points. READ MORE >>

In the increasingly unlikely event that Barack Obama does not become president, Martin Luther King’s dream would reveal itself as tragically unrealized 40 years after his death. Not, however, because whites were standing in that dream’s way, but because of the black people standing alongside them. Yes, black people. I find myself unable to trust that more than a sliver of black America would be able, if Obama lost, to assess that outcome according to--of all things--the content of his character. READ MORE >>