Scenes from the post-racial society: Courthouse edition

The New York Times reports on the continuing practice of excluding African-Americans from juries in Southern states. The article is based on a study by the Equal Justice Initiative: During two years of research in eight southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee), EJI interviewed over 100 African-American citizens who [...]

Scenes from the Post-Racial Society

Someone in Lowell, North Carolina didn’t get the memo. Allen McGee & Cyd McDaniel, an inter-racial couple, have been the targets of an ugly harassment campaign. First someone left a brick with a noose and an angry note on their front porch. Then someone defaced the house with threatening graffiti. According to the official municipal [...]

Today in Redneck Demagoguery

North Carolina State Senator Jim Forrester claims the state legislature is under the thumb of “Slick city lawyers and homosexual lobbies and African American lobbies“. Predictably, he then claims he “didn’t mean to offend anybody.” No, I’m sure he meant to compliment the “homosexual lobbies and African American lobbies” on their political prowess.

How Now, Clown Yow?

The local paper reports that incumbent Rep. Howard Coble (in whose district I currently reside) will face a GOP primary challenge from the delightfully named Billy Yow, currently a Guilford County Commissioner. As a relative newcomer to Greensboro, I was previously unfamiliar with Yow. He seems like a charming fellow: In 2004, Yow sold shirts [...]

Scenes from the “Post-Racial” Society

It appears someone didn’t get the memo. A weekend party that involved University of California San Diego students and mocked Black History Month has drawn the ire of black students and prompted a condemnation sent to all students and faculty by the chancellor. An invitation to the “Compton Cookout” event urged participants to wear chains, [...]

Scenes from the Post-Racial Society in Evanston

Two Northwestern University thought it would be a real hoot to don blackface for Halloween. Reaction on the campus and beyond ranged from justified indignation and shock at such a crass display of racist imagery, to predictable whining about “political correctness”. Personally, I find the most outrageous tidbit in the story to be the absurd [...]

Now ain’t the time for tears

46 years after he beat to death Hattie Carroll — a crime for which he received a mere 6-month sentence — William Zantzinger has finally died.

MC Hawking finally gets his wish

Jesse Helms represented the ugliest parts of my adopted home state’s history. The only thing sad about his death is that it did not occur several decades earlier. (Thanks to LGM for the links to Mother Jones and Salon.)

Former NASCAR employee sues over racist, sexist treatment

A lawsuit by a former NASCAR employee alleges a disturbing pattern of racist and sexist harassment and discrimination, including co-workers who referred to her as “Nappy Headed Mo” and “Queen Sheba” and told her she worked on “colored people time”, and a supervisor who made repeated references to the Ku Klux Klan. Mauricia Grant, an [...]

The politics of condoned racism

Pointing out the intellectual dishonesty in a Thomas Sowell column is less challenging, but still more satisfying, than shooting fish in a barrel. In his latest piece of poppycock, Sowell does his part for the reactionary disinformation campaign against the Jena 6 protests. According to Sowell, “The issue is the prosecution of a black high [...]