I’m looking over this flyer for a church group meeting that my son’s going to next week. It’s being held at a member’s house in a gated community, so the flyer has directions, as well as an entry code for the security gate. “Jesus wouldn’t like gated communities,” I say. “He was very welcoming to all people. This is racist. They’re trying to keep out blacks and Mexicans.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Race
Clarence Thomas, Judicial Nincompoop
Clarence Thomas is back in the news . . . During a recent Meet the Press appearance, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, questioned Thomas’ competence as a Supreme Court justice and was subsequently accused of racism, which is pretty much guaranteed to happen if you say anything critical of a black man, woman or child. Read more →
Redefining Race
MILWAUKEE — A radio talk show host drew criticism Thursday after calling Condoleezza Rice an “Aunt Jemima” and saying she isn’t competent to be secretary of state. — Radio Host Calls Rice ‘Aunt Jemima’ The host, who is white, also called Colin Powell an “Uncle Tom.” He added that he has a long history of commitment to civil rights and support of the black community. Read more →
I Love the BCA!
The Black Coaches Association (BCA) is about to issue grades to colleges and universities on their minority hiring practices: The BCA asked each of the 28 schools that had job openings during the past year to complete a form that was analyzed by an outside firm. Any school that does not complete a form receives an F. At USC, our traditional football rivalries are with UCLA and Notre Dame. Both of these schools have black head coaches and we kick their tails every year. Last year’s scores: USC 47, UCLA 22 USC 45, Notre Dame 14 More black head coaches! Fight On! Read more →
Into the Digital Abyss
The Globe and Mail reports that a “small but determined group of computer geeks [is] trying to translate open-source software into African languages, in an effort to reach the continent most isolated by the digital divide.” Read more →
Two Short Arguments For Affirmative Action
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it . . . Read more →
HW Solves Two of the Thorniest Problems in American Education
Racial Gaps On average, black students who graduate from high school are equipped with the skills the average white student mastered by the eighth grade, according to federal tests. — “Equal access to schools fails to equalize education,” USA Today Blah blah blah . . . Read more →
Stop the Presses
Black Voters Align With Democrats Against Bush — Washington Post Read more →
Mass Confusion
The biggest problem I find is that many black people don’t support the gay and lesbian civil rights movement because they don’t see black people as gay. And I think a lot of that comes from what they see on television because there are one or two characters who are both black and gay. — Jasmyne Cannick, board member of the National Black Justice Coalition, quoted on PlanetOut.com Now that’s the looniest statement I’ve heard today — although I do think the number of people unable to distinguish television from real life has been trending sharply upward . . . Read more →
A New Standard in Low Standards
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Maurice Clarett was charged Tuesday with lying about items stolen from a car he had been driving. Clarett was charged with misdemeanor falsification, city attorney spokesman Scott Varner said. If convicted, Clarett would face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. — ESPN.com, Sept. 9, 2003 Read more →
Goldilocks and the Three Networks
Diversity on television White and black characters are overrepresented, while Latino and Asian characters are underrepresented on prime-time TV, according to a recent UCLA study tracking diversity on television. (I would say first of all that if you want to know anything about diversity, you should definitely ask someone at UCLA. They are all about diversity over there, and here’s what it leads to — “researchers” watching sitcoms with a stopwatch.) Read more →
Three Short Arguments Against Affirmative Action
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that race can be a factor for universities shaping their admissions programs, saying a broad social value may be gained from diversity in the classroom. The Fairness Argument If it was unfair when we used to discriminate against blacks and Jews, don’t tell me it’s fair now to discriminate against whites and Jews. Read more →
HW’s Video Game Reviews
NBA Street The most racially insensitive video game I’ve ever seen. Every black character is a prancing, jive-talking buffoon, there’s a 7-foot-6 Japanese guy with a four-word English vocabulary — “Not in my house” — delivered with an accent straight out of a Godzilla movie, and followed by inscrutable grunting and mumbling . . . And so on. My kid loves it. Read more →
I Have a Dream (2003 Edition)
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where my memory is honored by a full slate of NBA basketball games . . .” Read more →
Ask HW: Why Aren’t There More Black Head Coaches in the NFL?
The conventional wisdom on this is that black coaches are hired on merit, while white coaches are hired by racists. Read more →