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Charisma to Routine

Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soulby eddie s. glaude jr.crown, 288 pages, $26There are two sorts of individuals who enter the spotlight in the wake of a charismatic leader. The first type imitates the outward performance of the charismatic leader but with none of the depth . . . . Continue Reading »

The Passing of the Voting Rights Act

In 1965, the U.S. Congress made a seismic decision. Faced with the disenfranchisement of black voters on the one hand, and a Constitutional mandate to maintain equal sovereignty among the states on the other, Congress decided that jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination at the polls should be compelled to seek “preclearance” from federal authorities any time they wished to change their voting procedures. Continue Reading »

Ferguson, Missouri

It pains me to admit it, but I see nothing new in the tragic events in Ferguson, nothing new in the protests, which often blended into festivals of destruction, nothing new in the extensive coverage and the calls for our nation to confront racism. It’s an old script, often replayed. Continue Reading »

Sorting Us Out

All persons of good will have reason to rejoice over the progress made in recent years in building a society of racial justice in America. More progress may confidently be expected under the present Administration, which has put diversity on the national agenda all the way to the highest levels of . . . . Continue Reading »

Safari

The white man has laid down his burdenin the middle of Broadwayand under the exhausted plane treesblack men lie like ragson the benches where onceold white ladies chirped in a rowwatching industrialized . . . . Continue Reading »

Race and Urban Politics

The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York by jim sleeperw. w. norton, 345 pages, $21.95 Most Americans have the sense that something went terribly wrong in the nation’s big cities sometime in the middle of the 1960s. Since then, urban areas have been perceived . . . . Continue Reading »

The Radical Paradigm and the New Racism

In confronting the race question in America today, we are faced with a paradox. On the one hand, our generation has lived through a political and cultural revolution that has no parallel. Discriminatory laws enforcing racial segregation have been declared unconstitutional and abolished, while the . . . . Continue Reading »

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