Race Issues

My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look…

As News One Now managing editor and former CNN contributor Roland Martin appeared as a guest on Sunday's The Point with Ari Melber on MSNBC, during a discussion of black suspects being shot and killed by police officers, the liberal commentator seemed unaware that more whites than blacks are killed by police as he declared that "it's going to have to take a series of white Americans shot and…

Airing on June 25, the 2017 BET Awards were hosted by comedienne Leslie Jones and mostly featured live musical performances. Otherwise, the focus of the awards was a message of encouraging Black Lives Matter social justice warriors, although, without the long preachy political sermons delivered in many other awards shows. References to people killed in police-involved shootings - including the…

In an article posted yesterday, Salon politics writer Chauncey DeVega trashed Republican Rep. Steve Scalise as a "bigot" and accused the Republican party of being a "sociopathic" entity that has "weaponized" the Scalise shooting and is "drunk on conspiracy theories and other hallucinogenic beliefs." He also repeated the discredited claim that Scalise spoke to a "white supremacist" group in 2002,…

The Mist just premiered on the Spike channel, and if the June 22nd pilot episode is anything to go on, we are in for a long, painfully dull, self-righteous, and gory season. After all, what else can we expect from a television show based on a story by Stephen King?

Wednesday night’s episode of NBC’s The Carmichael Show, “Cynthia’s Birthday,” presented a unique perspective on the use of the n-word. Jerrod Carmichael's family is appalled that his white friend, Drew, who owns the fancy restaurant they are going to for Cynthia's birthday, greets him as “my nigga.” There is discussion about leaving over the remark, but Jerrod defends his friend, saying that he’s…

As the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Friday informed viewers that former Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez was found not guilty of committing manslaughter last year against black motorist Philando Castile, CBS conspicuously omitted two facets of the case that help explain why he was acquitted. More than a year ago, Castile was tragically shot to death by Officer Yanez after…

As the Reverend William Barber appeared as a guest on Saturday's AM Joy on MSNBC to give his religion-based views on current events, host Joy Reid at one point seemed to worry about not being able to talk more about Republican Rep. Steve Scalise's conservative views and his history on "race," as she recalled the discredited story that the congressman spoke to a white nationalist event 15 years…

On Wednesday's All In, MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson still seemed to be clinging to the discredited story that Republican Rep. Steve Scalise spoke to a "white nationalist" group in Louisiana 15 years ago, as he suggested that the congressman has helped "exacerbate" tensions in politics. Near the end of the show, as host Chris Hayes suggested that liberals should ponder what their reaction would…

In a pre-recorded report on Thursday's New Day, CNN correspondent Randi Kaye repeated a discredited claim that Republican Rep. Steve Scalise 15 years ago spoke to a group founded by white supremacist and former KKK leader David Duke. As if the assertion that he spoke to the group were not in dispute, Kaye recalled: "Questions were raised about a speech he gave to a group led by former Ku Klux…

There are people who appear to live in hermetically sealed bubbles, and then there's Chris Cillizza, formerly of the Washington Post but now at CNN. On the apparently safe assumption that he really thought President Donald Trump and the public would have a hard time coming up with answers, Cillizza challenged the Commander in Chief and, and in effect the Twitterverse, to "name a (news) story that…

Ask any black person which political party has been black people's political ally. With near unanimity, blacks would answer the Democratic Party. Ask which political party has been hostile to blacks, they'd say the Republican Party with similar unanimity. For better answers, check out Prager University's five-minute clip "The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party," by Carol Swain,…

Appearing as a guest on Saturday's AM Joy, MSNBC contributor and Newsweek senior editor Kurt Eichenwald accused Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Republican members of Congress of defending "right-wing terrorists" during the Obama administration, as the liberal journalist tried to implicate mainstream conservatives in recent reports of hate crimes. Eichenwald: "In order to attack Obama. they said…

The third season of Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt took a turn into the world of politics by incorporating random snarky political one-liners into almost all of the thirteen half-hour episodes. With Hillary Clinton supporter and SNL alum Tina Fey as a co-creator of this internet series, it should be no surprise that the 2016 presidential election worked its way into dialogue.