Inside from the Inside

A mere seven days ago The Beer Summit brought us two grown people squaring off mano a mano to resolve an explosive racial issue.  It seems like the fire has been put out for the time being.  Is this a great country or what?  Today sixty eight senators voted to seat a “wise Latina” as [...]

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President Obama delivered a speech to the NAACP in New York yesterday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of its fouding.
His focus was on not only the results and the tactics that have been successful, but also on the obstacles that currently block the path to “a more perfect union.”  In some areas, this President really [...]

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When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the [...]

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Jeffrey Toobin profiles John Roberts in the New Yorker and says that race has becomes a defining issue for the chief justice:
[Roberts] has not yet embraced one particular judicial principle as his special interest—in the way that Rehnquist chose federalism and states’ rights—but Roberts is clearly moved by the subject of race… His concerns reflect [...]

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Many consider The Willie Lynch Letter urban legend. Its lack of suitable authentication does not diminish its instructive nature.
This letter outlines the most efficient, and least troublesome, means for mass control of a closed society.
Its core idea: Employ difference to feed division.
Oversight Governance is vertical. Control is horizontal.
Refined, the principles of the plantation of [...]

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“Why does Rice play Texas?”
- President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962
Do what is right because it is right - sometimes.  That’s on a personal level.  At a group level, it happens a little less frequently.  As a society, it’s getting pretty tough to pull off [unless there's a related benefit to be realized], and [...]

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There were no slaves
There are no slaves now and never were.

The people we have been referring to as ‘the slaves’ were (and are) in fact enslaved men and women. They were people who had as much intelligence, dignity and capability as you and I have. ‘Slaves’ are not who they were.

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Many of the tributes to John Hope Franklin included his statements on the need for apologies and reparations. I think its time for some gratitude because the only uniquely American contribution to world culture is  the blues and her many children.
It is said that Louis Armstrong singlehandedly created the  instrumental improvised solo and the world [...]

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Mahatma Ghandi, the man in the picture, has been one of the most profoundly positive influences on mankind in the last century. I suspect that his teaching of passive resistance liberated more humans non-violently than were been liberated by war.

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Consider this the first of many posts in which I extract my head from, um… the sand, to admit to astounding historical ignorance.

Until this morning, I’d never heard of Jack Johnson.

Johnson was boxing’s first black Heavyweight Champion of the World (1908-1915). He’s in the news today because John McCain and [...]

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