Minneapolis Will Fail Per this recent Minneapolis Star Tribune article, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is looking for a way to eliminate racism. How? By declaring that the reason that more black students are disciplined than white students is not a result of the black students’ greater inclination to misbehave, but partly because the…
Read More
Fact Based Fiction Yes, The Color of Character is fiction. But the life of Glen Feigman is based on real events in my life, the lives of friends and family, and from current events during the time the story takes place. 1970 was a turbulent time. My coming of age occurred during the social revolutions…
Read More
Killing the Dream In The Color of Character, I hold up Dr. King’s Dream Speech as the goal that the protagonist aspires to. This blog post is about implicit bias. If it really exists, and cannot be overcome, as the proponents of this idea claim, then Dr. King’s speech can never become reality. According to…
Read More
It’s Complicated Racism is real. It has shadowed humanity over the ages. Blatant racism that seems to dominate or repress exists. It is deplorable and should continue to be pointed out, shamed, disavowed, and stamped out. Systemic racism is a more difficult concept to grasp, including to this writer. I can understand its existence in…
Read More
Since When Does Preaching The Golden Rule Make You A White Supremacist? If asking someone to do what many of us not only used to call doing the right thing, and still consider doing the right thing makes you a white supremacist, then where do we go from here? There is no one with whom…
Read More
The Original Struggle I believe the fight for civil rights was for equal opportunity in America. The object was to make America a colorblind society where race was not a determining factor in accessing the opportunities offered to Americans in all things, including education, self-improvement, health, housing, and even the freedom to fail. The government…
Read More
Closed is Closed I had a brief report from my buddy John Q. Whiteman. John was upset at a situation that he felt demonstrated how out of control the accusations of racism have become. He has a close friend, whom I will call Jack, who works the front desk at a nice restaurant in one…
Read More
No Help Here How effective at making immediate improvements are the accusatory fingers pointing at white privilege? How many black youth struggling in violent neighborhoods have been helped by cries of institutional racism? How many young man with no positive messengers to model themselves after have been given a positive direction by the more fortunate…
Read More
Chicago continues to gentrify. White, Hispanic, and Asian populations of the city grow, while the black population of Chicago dramatically declines – creating a small net loss of residents, as our most violent neighborhoods empty out; their residents in search of jobs and a more peaceful life for themselves and their children. A result is a…
Read More
I’m always pushing dialogue to encourage mutual understanding in order to lessen what divides us where matters of race are concerned. Some folks just don’t want to talk. They want to point fingers in your face, preach, and judge, all the while with ears shut. That is not okay. That keeps us stagnating if not…
Read More