I wasn’t sure I heard Bill Maher right when he sat on his HBO stage and veered off into Trump-style craziness. I’ve always thought craziness was contagious, and Maher proved it. He has made a handsome living weaving political satire into his comedic performances. He’s been a steadfast critic of Donald Trump, and Maher has […]
I doubt Major League Baseball has a better ambassador for growing the game among Black youth than Mookie Betts, a bright star in the galaxy of current stars. Before the All-Star Game last night, Mookie dared to do what his peers wouldn’t do, which was shine a spotlight on the lack of Black fans […]
I had reservations about whether to go on safari when I stepped foot in South Africa less than a month ago. Friends who know me well will echo this truism: I’m not an outdoorsman. I don’t hunt. I don’t swim. I don’t camp. Heck, I get lost going downtown, so […]
October 27 is “National Mentoring Day,” one of those unofficial acknowledgements that fall on the calendar. While the day isn’t like Easter, Christmas or Thanksgiving, Mentoring Day is, nonetheless, a significant occasion to reflect on. For who has not had someone play the mentor’s role in their lives? He (or she) might be a teacher, […]
Saturday night was my first ballgame at Progressive Field since 2009, the year after I got fired (MLB.com called it a layoff. What’s the diff?) as a sportswriter. Perhaps I felt bitterness toward Major League Baseball for cutting loose another Black employee. No matter, because while I didn’t go to ballgames, I followed baseball. I […]
I’m certain my views of what happened on Capitol Hill echoes what a friend wrote on Facebook about Joe Biden’s inauguration. Here are my friend’s words: “ … for the sake of normalcy and unity, it was nice to see Republicans and Democrats playing nice today. Sometimes rhetoric and ‘politics’ plays well. I’m not excusing […]
No country can let insurrection go unpunished, and the consequence for attempting one must be Draconian. The United States should heed that message in whatever it does to anarchists who invaded the Capitol Building on Wednesday. Not that the country is treading on uncharted turf here. It screwed up its response to insurrection the last […]
Donald Trump used bold promises in 2016 to coax votes from Black folk who should have known better. Yes, they had reasons to fret about the Democratic Party and how it has often disregarded their concerns. Trump seized on this discontent. He told Black voters: “What do you have to lose?” They answered: Nothing. His […]
I should say that I am disappointed in evangelicals, but I have been wondering for a long, long time why I held on to hope they would find enlightenment on racism. But now whatever hope I did hold I jettisoned after I came to understand how in lockstep evangelicals were with Donald Trump. Since Trump […]