Tag: New York Times

  • I live the paradox that though my brown skin has excluded me from so called white privilege, all my life I have benefited from the plunder of privileged whites. From the time I read Thackeray’s novel “Vanity Fair” as a teenager, I have been fascinated by the character of Rhoda Swartz, the “woolly-haired mulatto from…

  • FOR nearly 20 years, my great-great-great-grandfather’s portrait has watched over me from my red dining room wall. With his high collar, ruffled cravat and black waistcoat, Samuel Fales, 1775-1848, is the very image of the upstanding 19th-century New England gentleman.

  • Obama Faces Growing Expectations on Race and Policing The New York Times 2016-07-21 Julie Hirschfeld Davis WASHINGTON — At the White House last week, DeRay Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter activist who was arrested only days before in Baton Rouge, La., for protesting police violence against African-Americans, had a lengthy list of demands for President…

  • Obama’s Delicate Balance on Issue of Race and Policing The New York Times 2017-07-08 Mark Landler, White House Correspondent Michael D. Shear, White House Correspondent WARSAW — As Air Force One headed for Europe on Thursday afternoon, President Obama holed up in the plane’s office editing a Facebook post meant to express his anguish at…

  • Charles Blow blows his horn in the New York Times Renegade South: Histories of Unconventional Southerners 2016-06-27 Victoria Bynum, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History Texas State University, San Marcos In today’s New York Times, opinion editor Charles Blow delivers a harsh critique of the movie, Free State of Jones, arguing that its treatment of slavery…

  • White Savior, Rape and Romance? The New York Times 2016-06-27 Charles M. Blow The movie “Free State of Jones” certainly doesn’t lack in ambition — it sprawls so that it feels like several films stitched together — but I still found it woefully lacking. The story itself is quite interesting. It’s about Newton Knight, a…

  • How Jesse Williams Stole BET Awards With Speech on Racism The New York Times 2016-06-27 Katie Rogers Jesse Williams accepting the humanitarian award at the BET Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. Credit Matt Sayles/Invision, via Associated Press The BET Awards Sunday featured tributes to Prince and Muhammad Ali, and a performance by Beyoncé and…

  • President Obama is an extraordinary figure who has done some good things in bad times, and some great things under impossible circumstances. As the first black president he has faced enormous difficulties and has had to weather a steady downpour of bad faith from the right wing and racist resistance from bigoted quarters of the…

  • Barack Obama, the President of Black America? The New York Times 2016-06-24 Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. What the haters and the hagiographers get wrong. It was a crucial speech, high-stakes even for a man used to giving important speeches: The first black president of the United States had to…

  • Review: Matthew McConaughey Rebels Against Rebels in ‘Free State of Jones’ The New York Times 2016-06-23 A. O. Scott, Film Critic Matthew McConaughey, left, and Jacob Lofland in “Free State of Jones.” Credit Murray Close/STX Entertainment “Free State of Jones” begins on the battlefield, with a flurry of the kind of immersive combat action that…