By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
ABINGTON, Pa.-- Peggy McIntosh connected her transformative work on white privilege to college curriculum changes sought decades ago as feminists worked to gain recognition for women’s contributions.
By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Board
Actor and comedian Bill Cosby made headlines in 2004 when he slammed “some” black people for how they talk and for squandering opportunities.
Denise Tiller, Midwest Voices 2008
We took the family to see the World Premier of John Brown at the Lyric Opera on opening night. It's a good show and I highly recommend it. When it was over, my husband and I immediately agreed on two points. One--it's about 15-20 minutes too long and, more importantly--things haven't really changed here in 150 years.
By Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star Editorial Board
BET's website has a quick quiz on some basic facts about the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
Go here.
For many Americans, time stopped on April 4, 1968.
On that day, 40 years ago today, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. For most of his adult life, he had been the most prominent black man in America. For daring to challenge the country’s segregationist practices, in both the North and South, he was cheered and jeered, revered and reviled.
I’m sure people are claiming victory this afternoon as Frances Semler has resigned from her position on the Parks Board. But as a member of the African American community in the Kansas City Metro, I’m not convinced that we have really won.
Sure, the SCLC called for Semler’s resignation or firing, and they got the intended results. But at what cost? Over the past few weeks we have seen rhetoric directed toward the mayor that seemed vitriolic and spiteful.
My perception of the SCLC news conference recently was that the leaders were so concerned with winning this battle that they used any weapon at their disposal without regard for the condition it would leave the city’s racial discussion in. The verbal barrage the Mayor took on December 13 was more focused on publicly denigrating him, and less focused on criticizing him in light of a larger vision for our city on the part of the African American leadership.
While the official origin of the term is up for debate, I find nothing funny nor innocent about lynching. (click here to read more on the history of the term “lynch”)
Jana Brazel cites Tolnay and Becks findings that identify “2805 [documented] victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast majority (almost 2,500) of lynch victims were African-American. Of these black victims, 94 percent died in the hands of white lynch mobs. The scale of this carnage means that, on the average, a black man, woman, or child was murdered nearly once a week, every week, between 1882 and 1930 by a hate-driven white mob” (click here for more on lynching)
Please read carefully the statement I'm about to make, it probably will anger some and a few may agree with me. America has enough racism in this country that African Americans don't have to chase after bad causes.
I refer you to the incidents over the last several months, Jena-6, Bill O'Reilly, Don Imus, Duke lacrosse team and Justice Clarence Thomas. What do these people have in common besides bad taste or policies that I don't agree with? I will be more than thrilled to answer the question.
These are people that most African Americans felt were guilty of being racist (even Clarence). Look, I put on the black shirt to protest the Jena-6 but when more information was made available it turns out that alot of what was going on down there smiply wasn't true.
The current debate on illegal immigration, news about the “Jena Six” and O.J. Simpson returning to the spotlight has rekindled my belief that America still has a long way to go in reconciling differences based on skin color. Each of these subject areas can be debated ad-nauseam concerning individual facts, however, there is certainly an undercurrent of bias based upon race.
Comments spoken in hushed tones around a water-cooler or on various talk radio shows have their nomenclature that utilizes new key words as descriptors. “Poverty pimps, nappy headed hos, and wetback” are examples of coy catch phrases whose real attempt is meant to be derogatory yet somehow benignly acceptable in public discourse. The latest new justification among whites for using the “N-word” is that black males use it freely with one another.
