The flap over Henry Lewis Gates and arresting officer James Crowley was supposed to be a "teachable moment," but other than the predictable outcries of "white racism lives!" the incident has proven to be of little pedagogical value. Nevertheless, it does illustrate a profound if ...
The debate over Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court has generated millions of words but nearly all of it comes down to two opposing positions. On one side are defenders of legal neutrality"it's the law, not whose ox gets gored, and Sotomayor's open embrace of group identity ...
President Obama recently offered up his solution to America's educational deficiencies, notably merit pay for teachers, more early childhood intervention and national standards, all topped off with the expected paean to achieving educational excellence to compete in the knowledge-driven 21st ...
On February 18th 2009, Eric Holder, our first African American Attorney General gave a well-publicized speech in which he called Americans cowards for, among other things, refusing to engage in an open, frank dialogue about our race relations. Reactions were immediate, nearly all negative and most ...
Under the general topic of malevolence, wickedness, and evil, a vocabulary exists for self-imposed harm, for example, self-mutilation or self-abuse. But such words always denote individuals"not collectivities"inflicting harm. It is almost unthinkable that, say, an entire ethnic group would ...
