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State of the Union: Obama Reverts to Teaching Again
John Boehner did not cry. Though President Barack Obama twice seemed to attempt to provoke a flood of tears from the notoriously weepy new speaker of the House of Representatives, Boehner remained dry-eyed throughout last night’s State of the Union address. He was not alone in being unmoved by the president’s curiously unmoving remarks. Last…
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President Obama and the New America
Today is the midpoint of Barack Obama’s first term as president of the United States of America. When scholars look back at this moment a century from now, what will they make of it? They, of course, will have the advantage of knowing facts about which we can only speculate, starting with whether Obama was…
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Obama's Lincolnesque Speech
One of the most challenging roles that American presidents must play is that of national healer in times of great tragedy. Barack Obama fulfilled that mission last night, perhaps as well as any U.S. president ever has, with a remarkably touching speech that echoed the redemptive tone of an earlier president from Illinois without quoting…
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Rescuing the President
When I arrived at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes, a sinister-looking armored Humvee was idling at the curb with Tonto at the wheel. Buckwheat and the Kingfish, both dressed in black ninja suits and Rambo-style bandannas, were carrying heavy camouflage-colored boxes out to the car while Charlie Chan and the Frito Bandito, in similar…
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Ginni's on the Phone
It was well before daybreak a few weeks ago when I got a call from the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. “White, you need to get over here right away,” Buckwheat insisted. “I’m being stalked.” When I arrived a few minutes later, Buckwheat was hollering into his telephone. “How many times does I have to…
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Buckwheat and Ginni
is a former columnist for TIME magazine and a regular contributor to The Root.
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Gingrich Channels D'Souza in Casting Obama as a Kenyan
Just when you thought the false propaganda against Barack Obama couldn’t get any deeper, along comes Newt Gingrich with another trainload of lies. Setting a shameful new standard for cynical manipulation of the paranoid fears of the Tea Party and so-called Birthers, the Republican former speaker of the House now claims that Obama suffers from…
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Kingfish Sues Sarah Palin for Theft of Intellectual Property
When I arrived at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes, the Kingfish and his lawyer, Algonquin J. Calhoun, were huddled in a corner, whispering to each other in conspiratorial tones. “What are those two cooking up?” I asked my friend Buckwheat, the famous Our Gang character. “Here I is, Brother White,” Buckwheat squeaked. “And what…
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Obama, the Ice Man
I wish that last week Barack Obama had not accepted General Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as commander of the war in Afghanistan. I wish that instead the president had picked up the phone and unceremoniously fired the blabbermouth military man as soon as he digested the insulting and insubordinate comments uttered by McChrystal and his staff…
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Buckwheat Casts a Paul on the Conversation
I was reading the newspaper in the library at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes when my old friend Buckwheat arrived. “Here I is, Brother White,” squeaked the diminutive Our Gang character. “What’s in the news?” “Well, the top story is about this fellow Paul and his provocative positions,” I replied. “He’s a libertarian, you…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
