It's Over – Barack Obama is the Democratic Nominee
May 7, 2008Audio
Despite the squeaker in Indiana last night, it’s over for Hillary.
Also the memory of Mildred Loving, who took on Virginia’s law against interracial marriages in 1967. Before she died, Loving endorsed the equal right of gay people to marry as well.
And other news of the week…
Gas Prices
May 6, 2008Audio Only
Why are they so high?
Who profits by this?
Should gas taxes be lowered? Raised?
Is there an answer here? Apart from waving Bush’s “magic wand”?
Guest: Tyson Slocum, Director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen
Where Wright Went Wrong
May 5, 2008Audio
Going beyond the obvious (AIDS conspiracy, Farrakhan…)
I have no problem with Reverend Wright’s argument that “difference does not mean deficient” nor his cogent analysis of African and European rhythm and music patterns.
But when Wright suggests that Black children need to learn differently from Whites, he brings us periously close to a reversal of Brown v. Board of Education.
Similarly, I praise Latinos (and other ethnic groups) who maintain the language and traditions of their native countries/culture but condemn those who do not want to learn English or American — and yes, Western — ways as well. We can have diversity AND a melting pot. We can be African and American, Latino and American, Jewish and American, Italian and American. But if you don’t want to be American at all, if you don’t want to learn English and traditional American ways of learning and teaching and speaking, well then, you don’t really belong here. Yes, you can try to modify the standards. Yes, you can and should advocate a “mosaic” as much as a “melting pot.” But we must have ties that bind us, even if those ties are the English language and a bunch of dead white Christian men who happened to found our country.
No one can dispute America’s long history of racism and oppression, but to teach Blacks that there is no hope, that all of America is a white cesspool seeking to destroy them, there is no hope for African-American self-improvement. The same is true with some Jews who have a Holocaust mentality.
One hundred years ago, W.E.B. DuBois spoke in “The Souls of Black Folk” of a “talented tenth,” that perhaps only 1/10 of Blacks could succeed in America given its systemic racism, but that 10% should be able to achieve despite all odds. Similarly, many Jewish and Asian families teach their children that despite the fact that antisemitism and racism continue to exist, they must still strive to learn and do better, even if they have a handicap. These cultures focus on education and share DuBois’ vision of retaliation through education. “We’ll show them!” is the rallying cry, rather than “We’ll fight them” or “We have no hope because they’re all evil.”
Times are substantially easier now for African Americans than they were a hundred years ago when Du Bois wrote his book. No, systemic racism isn’t gone. Yes, full equality remains decades, if not a century away.
Still, isn’t it time to up Du Bois’ numbers? How about a talented 70% or 80%? I suspect those numbers of African-Americans could succeed in America, despite the systemic racism that endures, if the taunt was only “We’ll show them despite all odds” rather than “They’re in a conspiracy to destroy us. Screw them!”
Wright’s and Obama’s visions collide. I trust Obama shares my vision, not Wright’s.
Obama had to go to Wright’s church to find the people that needed to be lifted up. But let us hope and pray that Wright’s vision belongs to the past while Obama’s belongs to the future.
Scalia: A Study in Hypocrisy
May 1, 2008Listen to Audio Here
The problem with Scalia is NOT that he’s an originalist.
The problem with Scalia is he’s a hypocrite.
Which 60 Minutes‘ recent puff piece did little to unearth.
But I did. As a student at Yale Law School, I put Scalia in his place…twice.
I challenged him on his own terms as a pure textualist.
And proved to him — in the face of hundreds of law students who laughed and taunted him for his failure to answer my challenge — that he is NOT an originalist.
In today’s show, I share my personal “smack-down” of Scalia, as I comment on the 60 Minutes interview.
Why is Wright Sabotaging Obama?
April 30, 2008Audio
45 Bonus Minutes (from Bob Kincaid’s show)
Wright seems determined to embarrass Obama.
Is this jealousy? Revenge?
Does Wright want to redeem his reputation?
Or enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame?
Perhaps he wants to free Obama by forcing Obama to denounce him.
Which Obama promptly did.
In today’s show, we play in detail Wright’s words, Obama’s response, and my comments on the controversy.
For any that might doubt whether Obama might agree with Wright’s most extreme words, this latest battle between the men should lay the issue the rest.
It should.
But it won’t.
The Republicans have found their 2008 Swift Boat and they will ride that boat again and again all the way to November.
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