Paul Street

“The culture of New Age Racism also brought blacks to the age of Oprah” – Elaine Brown, 2002 “A Real Black-Tie Event:” Love, Tears, and Racial Progress I recently caught a snippet of television that was relevant for understanding the savage persistence of stark racial inequality in the United States. I was flipping the dial…

Can it really be 50 years since the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v.The Board of Education that legal race separation was inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional in public education? The story and meaning of Brown v. Board is being told, re-told, analyzed, and in some cases even re-enacted in numerous anniversary events…

In the first chapter of his excellent The Clash of Barbarisms: Sept 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2002), Gilbert Achcar reflects on the depressing contrast between the “exceptional intensity of the emotions elicited worldwide by the destruction of Manhattan’s Twin Towers” and the comparative paucity…

“Skip” Gates is at it again: warning us about the dangerous, self-destructive choices being made by the United States’ poorest black citizens. I am referring to Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, who describes himself as “center left” and holds three prestigious academic titles, all at Harvard: W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Humanities, Chair of the Afro-American…

The U.S. Marines stood by and did nothing while the library at the Aristide Foundation was burned. With my own eyes I saw the American Marines stand and watch while rebels cut a woman and shot her. I yelled at them, “Do something!” and they swung their guns around toward me and yelled, “Get back!”…

Sometimes the masters of policy and opinion speak most loudly through their silences. In such cases, it’s what they fail to mention and what they choose to delete that says the most about who they are and what they are generally about: preserving privilege and power under the guise of populist concern for the people.…

The following article was first published on Znet. Let me start by quoting my favorite historical personality from Indiana – the great democratic Socialist Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute. “While there is a lower class,” Debs once said, “I am of it. While there is a criminal element,” he added, “I am of it; while…

Bettenhausen, who hails from a local family of accomplished racecar drivers, arrived in time only for the last talk. He apologized for his lateness, explaining that he had been meeting with the state’s Attorney General to discuss the “War On Terrorism.” His eyes beamed with pride as he told us how much busier he had…

People who wonder why a majority of African Americans do not support George W. Bush’s illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq might want to talk to a black gentleman and fellow Chicagoan I know named Tony. They should also review some recent and important research on hiring discrimination in and around Chicago, to…