Racial Issues

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The Big Hurt: The Obama jubilance debriefing

When celebrities celebrate, metaphors suffer
Obama is the first president in history to drop a HOVA reference in a campaign speech by way of a little hand-brushy motion, and rappers turned out in droves to support him.
By DAVID THORPE | November 19, 2008

Separate Cultures

The cultural divide between African-American and immigrant Muslims
In the late 1980s, when the plans for the mosque were first taking shape, it was intended to be developed by and for a primarily black Muslim population in Greater Roxbury.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | November 19, 2008

More from King and Flynn

By ADAM REILLY | November 06, 2008

Racial healing

Former mayoral opponents Ray Flynn and Mel King discuss how far their city’s come, and how far it hasn’t, since 1983
To be sure, racism still exists. But the distance our culture has come in 50 years — from blacks fighting for basic civil rights to a black man running for the White House — is remarkable.
By ADAM REILLY | November 10, 2008

Hope restored

Barack Obama's election has sparked international wonder. His task, however, is great.
Barack Obama's election has sparked international wonder. His task, however, is great.
By EDITORIAL | November 06, 2008

What rhymes with Barack?

Mr. Lif takes on the headlines
The story of underground hip-hop these days often seems like the inverse of Barack Obama’s story.
By FRANKLIN SOULTS | October 29, 2008

A step forward

Why the Connecticut Supreme Court got it right. Plus, ominous noises from the right wing.
The nation’s understandable preoccupation with the unfolding economic crisis has overshadowed a significant victory in the battle for same-sex marriage: the Connecticut Supreme Court, on October 10, ruled that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry.
By EDITORIAL | October 22, 2008

Norman Mailer’s ‘White Negro’ gets the treatment

Action speaks!
Long before suburban kids began digging Dr. Dre and Tupac, an earlier generation of young white people venerated the jazz and swing music of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s.
By IAN DONNIS | October 15, 2008

A mighty bad man

Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
October 3, 1995, brought my worst experience at the University of Memphis.
By RICK WORMWOOD | October 09, 2008

The Express

Football bio-pic offers a reflection on our not-so-proud past
Ernie Davis may be the greatest running back never to play in the NFL.
By TOM MEEK | October 09, 2008

The good news

David Alan Grier fills "TV's black hole" with Chocolate News
When David Alan Grier promises that he’s “filling TV’s black hole” with his chocolate flavor, you know it’s gonna be good.
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | October 08, 2008

Bill Burr

Why Do I Do This? | Comedy Central
The tirades he delivers here, always laced with self-depreciation, amount to a lovingly mean-spirited string of barbs aimed at racists, idiots, girlfriends, bikers, and well, just about everybody.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | August 26, 2008

Through race-colored glasses

Diverse City
Folks, we have an elephant in the middle of our national living room. And I don’t mean the Republican Party. It’s race.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | August 20, 2008

Parody flunks out

Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

Will race enter the race?

Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Díaz don’t talk about the racial split in their Senate showdown, but it’s likely to make its mark
Two years ago, when Dianne Wilkerson inexplicably failed to submit the necessary signatures to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election as state senator, a 28-year-old upstart seized the opportunity.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 30, 2008

Leggo my ego!

The GOP is smearing Obama as a narcissist. So why is the press playing along?
If Barack Obama loses the presidency this November, it won’t be because of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or “Bitter-gate,” or sundry other vulnerabilities.
By ADAM REILLY | July 30, 2008

Who’s the real Obama?

Diverse city
Do we know who Obama is and what motivates him, and are we really looking to find out?
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | July 23, 2008

Time for a clean sweep?

A former guard calls for prison reform
In early 2007, Rhonda Dawson, a thoughtful, candid, 45-year-old African-American guard at the Maine State Prison in Warren, quit her job after four years because, she says, of racist taunting from her fellow correctional officers.
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 23, 2008

Virtual brotherhood

Uniting the world by two-way video
Three kids camped out in front of Brookline Booksmith’s storefront window in the middle of June and peered into a video screen broadcasting real-time views of a street corner in Dudley Square.
By IAN SANDS | June 25, 2008

Blood money

Adventures in the slave trade
Katrina Browne’s Traces of the Trade is a legendary local documentary, a film on which all hands in Boston indie production seem to have toiled at some point.
By GERALD PEARY | June 24, 2008

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