(Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer for The Atlantic, wants his blackness both ways, the author says.) There are certain black folk in the media whose roles have roots in history going back to Booker T. Washington. These folk are profoundly damaging to the sensibilities of the black masses, particularly the black poor. That person is the […]

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Roger Nicholson shamed an Infowars “reporter” for believing the FBI caused the Boston Marathon bombing. That might be the best we can do with people who don’t believe in facts. Journalists face a tough choice when it comes to covering conspiracy theorists. Give them attention and risk encouraging their delusions of grandeur, or ignore them […]

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(Gimme the Loot stars Ty Hickson and Tashania Washington.) The night after my wife and I saw Gimme the Loot at Manhattan’s IFC Center last month, a dancer friend of our dancer son told us a story about his walk home one recent evening in a semi-fringe Brooklyn neighborhood where a teenager jumped in front of […]

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  (Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now in police custody in Boston.) Race is a social construction. There is only one race, the human race. But race has historically been something negotiated by the courts, something that has legal standing, and something that has impacted people’s lives across the color line. As Cheryl Harris and […]

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  AP photo It is a given that Kermit Gosnell should be stripped of his medical license and incarcerated. Those who support abortion rights see Gosnell as proof of the types of horrible things that will occur if a woman’s right to be the final arbiter over her reproductive choices is curtailed by the state: […]

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