Please check out my response to Erica Jong’s racially insulting she wrote for The Huffington Post.
My answer is posted over at Aol. Here’s an excerpt:
Some people are blinded by their own racial arrogance. They are so convinced that their perspective is relevant on what life is like for people of color, that they regurgitate hackneyed perspectives on race as if they are revelations. Writer Erica Jong, famous for books including”Fear of Flying,” published a column in The Huffington Post that stands as exhibit A of this kind of annoyance.
Jong …

Mike Huckabee has done something reasonable and, in these divided times, that makes it newsworthy and admirable. In a talk at the Hudson Union Society, where he discussed his forthcoming book, “A Simple Christmas”, Huckabee pushed back against the conservatives who criticized President Obama’s visit to Dover Air Force base. Via Huffington Post:
When he [Barack Obama] was at Dover the other day, and went there to pay respect for soldiers, I heard a lot of people on the Right say “Aw, that’s just a cheap photo-op.” No, I think it …

Interesting and clever promotional high jinks.
Should she go? YOUR thoughts?
My original post: My Take on Tea Parties

by Andrew Padula
I can’t imagine how horrible it must feel to be a parent who had someone on a national stage joke about having their child raped at a public venue. What must be even worse is having people come to the defense of this cur and justify his actions because the child’s older sister had become pregnant as a teen. In my mind, nothing can justify these vulgar attacks perpetrated on the children of the standing Governor of the state of Alaska. But this is not …

I applaud NASCAR and Rusty Wallace for taking this seriously. Read on from ESPN.com:
NASCAR suspended crew chief Bryan Berry indefinitely on Thursday for what his team owner, Rusty Wallace, termed “an alleged racial slur” against African-American driver Marc Davis at last Saturday night’s Nationwide race.
NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston termed the violation “an inappropriate comment that won’t be tolerated.”
Berry is crew chief for Brendan Gaughan on the Wallace team. During Saturday night’s race at Nashville Superspeedway, Gaughan was entering his pit and hit Davis, who was trying to turn left through …

This post is one of many posted in this weekend’s blogging campaign encouraging all of us to remember that we can do better to get our points across than to use simplistic and hateful speech or resort to violence to get our points across. The cartoon of Judge Sotomayor and the murder of Dr. George Tiller brought the sad power of racist marginalization and dehumanizing rhetoric right up to our eyes where we cannot ignore it.

Let me be very clear about why I am offended by Chip Bok’s characterization of …

Katherine has spoken of being on a journey to learn more about the reality of racism in 2009. Sometimes that journey gets bumpy, as it did this week. Here are her reflections:
When Carmen posted the stunning and unbelievable lyrics from Rolling Stone’s “Brown Sugar” it revealed a shocking tale of slave rape. Carmen asked us if we knew of any other popular music that hummed of racism. I got right to it and began my hunt. Surely and sadly there would be many songs that may have hidden …

Perhaps those of us on the outside looking in have it all wrong. Perhaps Mr. Steele is a mole. Maybe Michael Steele is a one man, chocolate colored, fifth column for political progressives. It’s becoming plausible that Mr. Steele’s goal is to burrow in and then ransack the GOP from the inside while other conservatices/Republicans take on that task from the outside. Think I’m wrong? Then you explain Steele’s latest, self-hating suck up:
While hosting Bill Bennett’s radio show Friday morning, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele appeared to agree …

Top radio trash talker Tammy Bruce took her vocal derision of the First family to a new low today. Bruce hurled criticism after criticism at the First Lady in a rant that sounded like Bruce was unraveling on air. What triggered Bruce’s tirade? Oh, that would be the First Lady’s recent conversation with school children in which she shared that other kids had accused her of "talking white" :
"I wanted the A for myself, and I wanted to do it, and ooh, they said you sounded like a …

Its Tis grew up in rural upstate New York, and with her sister, integrated the Head Start program and later the public school they attended. This was the late sixties. It was really, really hard. At 13 she went to a racially mixed boarding school where she was teased for “acting white.” This was the late seventies. It was really, really hard. Because of these experiences, she has learned to dance with understanding between different races and cultures; learning, periodically stepping in it, and …

High profile, racially offensive attempts at humor and satire seem to have increased since President Barack Obama became the front-running candidate last summer.
And although the way white artists, satirists and cartoonists have portrayed President and Michelle Obama snatched the most headlines, no racial group is immune from bearing the brunt of cloddish and racially offensive attempts at clever political or social observation.
The most annoying and head shaking aspect of this increasingly apparent pattern, is that once the group which is the subject of the "satire," and its allies, point …

Ah ‘the race card.’ That phrase pops up in almost e-v-e-r-y thread having anything to do with racial discussion these days. I have some very strong ideas about the way it is being used, but I will hold those for a future post.
In the meantime, I am asking YOU who use the phrase or have very strong reactions to the phrase ‘race card’ to share your interpretation of what it means exactly.
Please speak up and as always please speak freely on this one. This issue is very important to …

In the days following Barack Obama’s election, hateful racial incidents have surged. Some are more ominous than others, some with more impact, some just kinda stupid and annoying. Some examples:
Idaho school kids chant “Assassinate Obama” on a school bus and school officials are slow to (barely) react.
“They just hadn’t heard anything like this before,” said Whoolery. “They were chanting on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.’ Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama and Kate.’”
The Whoolery’s explained to their kids what assassinate means …

In his latest audio, Ayman al-Zawahiri Al-Qaida’s number 2, has the gall to call President-elect Barack Obama "dishonorable" and a "house negro." According to the Associated Press:
CAIRO,Egypt (AP) – Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in the terror group’s first reaction to his election, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites.
The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Al-Zawahri said in the …

If there is no racial undertone to the way the terms “arrogant” and “uppity” are being slung around and flung onto Barack Obama, then I have a favor to ask. Would someone who describes Obama as arrogant, please explain to me how he is different from any other presidential candidate? I don’t know about you, but I have yet to encounter a President or presidential candidate who did not have a more than ample helping of confident drive wrapped in a very muscular ego.