Free Republic

Not every athlete is caught up in the Linsanity. Unbeaten boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has posted a swipe at the New York Knicks' point guard sensation on Twitter. Mayweather posted on Monday: "Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise." Lin has led the Knicks to five straight victories, including a 38-point game against the Lakers. Later, Mayweather took to Twitter to defend his comment. "Its OK for ESPN to give their opinion but I say something and everyone questions...

Racism is about many things but it isn't about race. To understand the uses of race in American liberalism requires understanding its place in the political culture. When American liberals speak of race they aren't speaking in the genetic sense, what they are doing is clumsily piggybacking class onto race and adding one dubious construct to another. The placement of racial politics at the center of liberal advocacy coincided with a growing national prosperity that seemed to be on the way to making class warfare of the old kind irrelevant. Previous liberal civil rights activity had been a subset of...

The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were...

Boxer Floyd Mayweather believes that New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin is getting national attention because of his race, rather than his exceptional play. "Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise," Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account on Monday afternoon.

Hey, Jackson, is it Samuel L. or Jesse? Actually, it's more likely that the actor was channeling Jeremiah Wright. In a racial-epithet-laced interview with Ebony magazine, the Pulp Fiction star proved that his politics is a fiction and his head is filled with, well, you fill in the blank. Jackson admitted that he only voted for Barack Obama because of the president's skin color. Said the actor, "I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people - because they look like them. That's American politics, pure and simple. [Obama's] message didn't mean...

Racism is about many things but it isn’t about race. To understand the uses of race in American liberalism requires understanding its place in the political culture. When American liberals speak of race they aren’t speaking in the genetic sense. What they are doing is clumsily piggybacking class onto race and adding one dubious construct to another. The placement of racial politics at the center of liberal advocacy coincided with a growing national prosperity that seemed to be on the way to making class warfare of the old kind irrelevant. Previous liberal civil rights activity had been a subset of...

What does race have to do with Los Angeles City Council redistricting? It is truly astonishing in the year 2012 to hear politicians, pundits and newspapers speak openly and unashamedly about ensuring "minority seats" in Los Angeles City Council. What does any of this have to do with clean, safe streets and good schools? Every 10 years, Los Angeles City Council redraws its boundaries for its 15 seats. Or more precisely, it has the districts redrawn by somebody else. Then the incumbent politicians start complaining. Usually it's lefty politician vs. lefty politician as to who keeps or loses what in...

Jackson: Heated GOP rhetoric puts presidents at risk

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Friday accused Newt Gingrich of using racial “code words” in calling President Barack Obama the “food stamp president” and saying schools ought to hire children to do janitorial work. The Texas congresswoman’s comments came in response to a question about remarks she made on the House floor Wednesday, when she said there are “candidates like Newt Gingrich who want to throw fuel and matches and fire to develop sort of an explosiveness in this country” and there are “underlying suggestions” to calling Obama the “food stamp president.” “These are code words. It’s inappropriate,” Jackson...

The sheer number of pardons handed out by outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour – over 200 – left many Mississippians in shock. What may not have been so surprising is that white prisoners were four times more likely than black ones to get the gubernatorial benefit of the doubt. Out of a total of 222 acts of clemency given by Barbour during his tenure – 156 of which Attorney General Jim Hood has subsequently argued may be constitutionally invalid because of public notice violations – two-thirds benefited white prisoners. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the state's prison population is black. On its...

Forty-five years ago, sixteen states still prohibited interracial marriage. Then, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. The Lovings were not active in the Civil Rights movement but their tenacious legal battle to justify their marriage changed history when the Supreme Court unanimously declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation law—and all race-based marriage bans—unconstitutional. LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet's intimate images were uncovered by director Nancy Buirski during the...

It’s interesting that liberals accuse traditionalists of wanting to turn back the clock. For they themselves live in 1952. To be precise, where those on the right want to resurrect the virtues of ages past, leftists think that vices long buried never died. It’s enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall; only, neurological damage has bad effects like uncontrollable drooling and a desire to read The New York Times. Speaking of which, the Old Gay Lady recently published an opinion piece by one Lee Siegel titled "What's Race Got to Do With It?” Discussing the...

With members of the mainstream media now hurling charges of using racially coded language against GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Big Government has uncovered a private memorandum written over three decades ago that offers a unique glimpse into Mr. Gingrich’s longstanding attitudes about race...

Juan Williams tried to pin Newt down over his “poor kids should be janitors” answer from some time ago, and tried to make it about race. Newt took the opportunity to own Williams over asking the question, and got a partial standing ovation for it in the end.

Allen West asked this morning, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that the President not play the race card in 2012. After all, his election was the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream, West said, and “how devastated would Dr. King be to know the Americans who are still fomenting racism at the highest levels are the very people for whom he fought for and died?”

President Obama has mocked Martin Luther King by policies and actions that judge people by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Junior's "I Have A Dream Speech" was one of his more eloquent and moving speeches. His words have resonated with all Americans for the past five decades and will do so for many decades to come. Among his dreams was an America where his four children would be judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" Of course, he was not just...

In a piece titled, “When white people lack “bourgeois values,” the Salon Editor at Large manages a race and class-baiting exacta, covering an alleged economic disdain shown by Republicans towards African-Americans, and charging the GOP with promoting policies which “shackle women to the home.”

Red-Wine Researcher Charged With 'Photoshop' Fraud Robert Lowes   January 13, 2012 — A University of Connecticut researcher known for touting the health benefits of red wine is guilty of 145 counts offabricating and falsifying data with image-editing software, according to a 3-year university investigation made public Wednesday. The researcher, Dipak K. Das, PhD, is a director of the university's Cardiovascular Research Center (CRC) and a professor in the Department of Surgery. The university stated in a press release thatit has frozen all externally funded research in Dr. Das's lab and turned down $890,000 in federal research grants awarded to him....

Paul Weston’s latest essay concerns the apparent indifference of the British media and political establishment to racially motivated crime — unless, of course, that crime is committed by white people against non-whites... The mainstream media (MSM) have devoted a great deal of space to the Stephen Lawrence case of late. Many journalists have commented that whilst Britain was a racist country in the recent past, the Britain of today is a much more tolerant place. This may well be the case with regard to white-on-non-white racial crime, but what about the violent crime committed by non-whites on whites, and what...

Now that Ron Paul has achieved electoral respectability in the Republican primaries, the media is in high dudgeon over his extremism. Paul, according to the procurators of good taste at the New York Times, "long ago disqualified himself for the presidency" by, among other things, "peddling claptrap proposals" such as "cutting a third of the federal budget."

The generic name for this mayhem is ice cross downhill, a label that reflects its blending of elements from skating, skiing and boardercross (snowboard racing). Crashed Ice, the title of this series of races, offers an additional nod to what happens to many of the racers. Falls are such a part of the race that competitors are required to wear full hockey or motocross protective gear.

In a short piece in the “Culture Monster” section of the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight decries a satirical depiction of the First Lady based on a 1775 portrait of famed French lover of luxury, Marie Antoinette. The image replaces Marie’s face with Mrs. Obama’s, and the young queen’s puffy-sleeved left arm with a bare muscular black arm – clearly a poke at Mrs. Obama’s penchant for going sleeveless to show off her buffed guns. Her right hand points to a spot on a world globe, and the image caption reads “Choosing the next vacation.” Obviously a pointed commentary on...

Stirring the racial pot? Or telling blunt truths? During the past week, not one, not two, but three Republican Party presidential candidates have tied either black people, in general, or President Barack Obama, in particular, to welfare or other forms of public assistance that, the candidates say, lead to dependency, out-of-control government spending and a culture of entitlement that is harming the nation. Supporters say the candidates simply are telling blunt truths about a failed presidency marked by excessive spending. Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/01/07/2104360/rivals-using-racial-code-critics.html#storylink=cpy

Watching a high school all-star game on ESPN. Instead of North vs. South, East vs, West, or red team vs. blue team, it is the black team vs. the white team. ?

An adviser to Michele Bachmann says the Minnesota congresswoman is ending her bid to win the Republican presidential nomination after coming in last in the Iowa caucuses. Bachmann finished sixth out of six candidates in the first of many contests to pick a Republican presidential candidate. She canceled appearances planned for Wednesday in South Carolina and scheduled a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, instead. The adviser requested anonymity to speak before Bachmann makes the announcement.

Black people don't have opportunities to benefit from technology, and it's racist to suggest otherwise. That is the only lesson to be drawn from the racially charged tempest unleashed by the infamous Forbes article "If I Were a Poor Black Kid."

Suffrage: Fresh from using his race as a defense in the Fast and Furious scandal, the attorney general blocks South Carolina's voter photo ID law as discriminatory. Tell that to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Palmetto State can't seem to catch a break from this administration. First, the right-to-work state gets harassed by the National Labor Relations Board over Boeing's expansion into a new plant. Now the Justice Department has blocked a voter ID law passed in May and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley. Both federal actions, along with a Justice Department investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have...

Tucson's Mexican American studies program violates state law, an Arizona administrative law judge ruled Tuesday, paving the way for the program's possible demise. Judge Lewis D. Kowal affirmed a prior decision by the state's schools chief that the Tucson Unified School District's program violates a new law prohibiting divisive ethnic-studies classes. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, had deemed the program in violation in June. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people." The school district appealed Huppenthal's ruling, and testimony...

The 2012 presidential race will be decided in a dozen swing states, and President Obama faces a hard road to victory in many of them. “It appears this election will be much more like Bush-Gore” in 2000, said Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, co-founder of Alexandria-based Purple Strategies. “The president ain’t gonna win by 95 electoral votes.” Political strategists in both parties say the number of reliably Democratic states should give Mr. Obama at least 196 electoral votes, and the solidly Republican states should give the GOP nominee 191.

<p>LITHONIA, Ga. - The quest for some limited edition sneakers took an ugly turn early Friday morning outside the Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia.</p> <p>DeKalb police say several people have been arrested, including one woman who left two young children in her car, after the new Nike Air Jordan 11 "Concords" went on sale.</p>

Five days ago, a New York Times article delivered a shot heard ’round the world. It came in the form of a statement by Eric Holder, the attorney general. About some of the criticism directed at him, he said, “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him, both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.” Buckle your chinstrap: We’re going to be hearing a lot of this sort of thing in 2012. Will it be all race, all the time?...

President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign will be the first in modern political history to abandon white working-class voters, strategists claim. For decades, Democrats have been losing more and more blue collar whites. Their alienation helped lead to the massive Republican wave in 2010, when the GOP wooed 30 percent more of them than the Democrats could. Democratic strategists say President Obama is focusing his attention, instead, on poor black and Hispanic voters and educated white professionals. 'All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left...

WHEN THE SUPREME COURT, in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger, narrowly upheld the use of racial preferences at the University of Michigan Law School, it emphasized that such preferences were barely tolerable under the Constitution. They could be used only as a last resort, the court ruled, they must not unduly harm non-minorities, and public universities had to start finding ways to phase them out. "We are mindful … that '[a] core purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race,'" Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for a 5-4 majority....

You know he’s getting desperate. (NYT) — For nearly three years, Republicans have attacked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on national security and civil rights issues. For months, they have criticized him over a gun-trafficking investigation gone awry, with dozens of leaders calling for his resignation. Last week, more than 75 members of Congress co-sponsored a House resolution expressing “no confidence” in his leadership. [...] In the interview, Mr. Holder offered a glimpse of how he viewed the criticism. He said he thought some critics — like Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who favors allowing the military...

Just heard a snippit about 15 minutes ago, they were discussing certain internet posts by some minor public offcials saying Jeb Bush may enter the race.

Thirty-six athletes from 17 countries braved the sub-zero temperatures to complete the 26-mile race at the bottom of the world. The start line for the race was at the Union Glacier Antarctic base camp in the southern Ellsworth Mountains, just over 60 miles from the South Pole. Ahead of the race, every competitor had to have their skin fully protected from the sub-zero temperatures. Clothing included a full balaclava, goggles, gloves and mittens, long johns, waterproof running trousers and several layers of thermal clothing. But the harsh conditions are all part of the appeal of the race. "I guess there's...

Announcer’s Voice: Hey, guys and gals! Where do you go for a good old-fashioned political lynching? Guys and Gals: Where? Announcer’s Voice: You go to Politico! Guys and Gals: Politico? Announcer’s Voice: Thaaaatttt’ssss right! Politico…the place where everyone goes for good old-fashioned political lynchings. No other news source quite strings ‘em up like Politico. Once a long-standing tradition of the New York Times, now Politico has taken the noose! And boy have they run with it!

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A tiny all-white Appalachian church in rural Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from joining its flock, pitting members against each other in an argument over race. Members at the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church voted Sunday on the resolution, which says the church “does not condone interracial marriage.” The church member who crafted the resolution, Melvin Thompson, said he is not racist and called the matter an “internal affair.” “I am not racist. I will tell you that. I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil about...

Race indelibly colors America’s tapestry. Caring citizens of every hue are heartbroken by persistent problems plaguing many black communities. Like every demographic, American blacks fare much better than relations still residing in Africa, but they languish in several aspects including income. While numerous obstacles hamper more widespread black affluence, one pernicious undercurrent appears particularly destructive: manufactured racism. A lucrative racial extortion racket longs to expose lingering prejudice behind every errant look or parsed word. “Leaders” like Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton exaggerate racism en route to amassing fortunes. But peddling ideas that America is grossly bigoted or that...

If you point out a wave of racial mob violence, you are "race-baiting," according to several liberal commentators. Perhaps these liberals are the ones Attorney General Holder referred to when he called ours a "nation of cowards." The wave of racist violence committed by black flash mobs is different from any other form of racism today. The neglected social problem of racial mob violence is unique in its organization, the high numbers of people involved, the intensity of the violence, and the stark racial impact of that violence. The violence is also unique in that it has been purposefully obscured...

Listen to John Derbyshire's interview with Seth Forman, author of American Obsession: Race and Conflict in the Age of Obama.

Words matter in matters of race and sex. Herman Cain probably knows this better than anyone. In fact he made a point of correcting David Gregory’s chosen vernacular on “Meet The Press” when he told the moderator that he preferred to be called ‘black’ as opposed to ‘African’ -American in the context of defining his race. Important distinction.

by Sheri UrbanReal FeministHere she goes again. A 'new' Herman Cain's 'accuser' is about to go public today, with the help of the Queen of Sleaze, Gloria Allred, the one who once sued the Boy Scouts on behalf of a girl, claiming "discrimination" (she lost). You know the one who represented the illegal alien housekeeper of Meg Whitman, former California Gubinatorial Candidate. Gloria Allred is, as Michelle Malkin puts it, a crapweasel. A so-called "feminist" lawyer who parades pathetic caricatures of victimhood, instead of actually empowering women. Today she will parade a woman who - 12 years ago, never filed...

PITTSBURGH -- A new study says Pittsburgh newspapers and newscasts present a distorted picture of black men and boys. Researchers say that although blacks make up about a quarter of the city's population, they found fewer than one in 10 front-page newspaper stories over a three-month period in 2010 featured black men and boys, and of those that did, 37 percent were crime stories. The study, titled Portrayal and Perception, says 86 percent of local television news featuring black men and boys focused on crime.

Makes sense. What better way to keep blacks down than by electing a rich, self-made black businessman president of the United States? I appreciate the fact that he’s willing to sit in the back of the bus, and by “the bus� I of course mean “his own limousine.� Such cheery subservience deserves a pat on the head and a treat of some sort. How about we give him the nuclear launch codes?Cathy Young wrote an article for Reason a few days ago about the left’s endless race-baiting of Cain, but I don’t know what she was thinking in rushing that...

The Occupy D.C. protesters crowding McPherson Square say they represent the “99 percent of Americans” who aren’t the most wealthy. But their racial composition isn’t a mirror of the 99 percent of Americans they claim to represent. A majority of the protesters in the nation’s capital are white, a fact that both black and white activists have noted. Tate Jawdat, a white woman who has been “occupying” the square for a little more than a week, said she doesn’t see enough color in the crowd. “The occupation is very white and the committees are largely run by white men,” she...

Black racists are coming out of the woodwork. It’s hard to imagine how vile and bigoted they are in their attacks on Herman Cain. Such treatment has a long history. Today, it’s an industry. A number of black “leaders” (e.g., Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) have made their living by promoting black victimhood and white guilt. Jesse Jackson has been shaking down corporations with the scam for decades. Booker T. Washington (1865–1915) warned of such people within the black community in his 1911 book My Larger Education. He described them as “problem profiteers”: “There is another class of coloured people...

Out of all the possible reactions to the new conservative cartoon, “The Les Dowrey Show,” there is one thing that I never saw coming- the race card. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s the liberal’s favorite trump card to play for anything and everything, but never in my wildest imaginations did I think I would be called a racist. Then again, imagine how Herman Cain must feel. In the second episode of the show, Les Dowrey goes to the scene of the occupy Wall Street protests only to discover the stinky unemployed hippy protest is really a zombie outbreak....

Columnists and reporters have been falling over themselves trying to analyze how the Occupy Wall Street protests compares to the tea party movement. But they’ve failed, says One Nation Back to God founder the Rev. C.L. Bryant, to treat both movements fairly. “It’s amazing to see that the ‘occupiers’ of Wall Street are basically white kids, and they’re dressed fairly well — there are some out there who are kinda scruffy — but I don’t see the media bringing up the fact that there are no black folks in it,” he said.

By now, you've surely heard of Herman Cain, the latest phenom in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Cain, a black businessman, has ridden the popularity among conservatives of his 9-9-9 tax plan to surge in national polls; he leads both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Iowa and is neck-and-neck with the erstwhile frontrunner in Florida. Some people see in Cain simply a charismatic former Godfather's Pizza CEO ("The Pizza You Can't Refuse"). I see something else: a troubling statement about the role of race in our politics. Recently, the New York Times ran a story suggesting that...