Category: The African World

It’s not just that the crowd is overwhelmingly white. Actually, I could live with that given the way that attendance at baseball has changed over the years, in part a reflection of the gentrification of US cities. What is striking is how race plays itself out in the stadium in this period where race is…

You mention “Agent Orange” and some people think that you are talking about a spy movie. For others, particularly those who know anything about the Vietnam War, they tend to think that it is something out of the distant past, perhaps an unfortunate historical episode. “Agent Orange” is the name for an extremely toxic defoliant…

Relativism: it may have happened, but it is not as bad as what the capitalists do. We on the Left are so afraid that any acknowledgement of a crime committed by a progressive or so-called progressive will give aid and comfort to the enemy that we respond in such a way as to discredit ourselves…

When he opened the door to the Holocaust Museum on June 10th, Stephen Johns probably thought that he was being polite in assisting an elderly gentleman. More than likely it would never have occurred to him that he was a few minutes from death at the hands of an alleged fascist. The shootout at the…

Let’s start with the obvious. President Obama’s speech was a remarkable speech for a President of the United States of America. Leaving aside its eloquence, what was striking about it included his use of history; his tackling the Islamophobic distortions of Muslim history that are so prevalent in the USA and Western Europe; his acknowledgement…

Although I had heard of the murder, I had never heard of the lead murderer. Last week it was announced that the mastermind behind the 1948 murder of United Nations’ mediator Count Folke Bernadotte—Yehoshua Zettler—had died a natural death. Count Folke Bernadotte was a near legendary Swedish diplomat responsible for negotiating the release of thousands…

It is fairly unusual for the immediate past President or Vice President of the United States to attack the standing Administration. Some pundits describe it as a violation of protocol. That is not of particular relevance to this commentary. Dick Cheney’s attack against the Administration needs to be understood at both the political / psychological…

Dear President Obama: I know that you did not ask my opinion, but in light of your meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu I wanted to humbly offer a few thoughts and suggestions. No US Presidential administration since President Eisenhower has taken a really tough stand towards Israel and its violations of international law and…

There has been a great deal of both chatter and analysis – on the Internet and in other media – regarding the Obama administration’s seemingly lackluster response to demands that officials from the Bush administration (up to and including the former President himself) be investigated and possibly prosecuted for abuses of authority. There are probably…

The Israeli government often reminds me of a dog I once owned. My dog was forbidden to enter into the living room. Nevertheless, she would creep into the living room, usually moving a few inches at a time in order to see whether we reacted. If we did not react, she would move further into…