Free Republic

Hold on. Courage, Matt, courage. Breathe. OK, I’m ready. This is it. I’m coming out. I want the world to know. I’m a black, lesbian platypus trapped in a white, straight guy’s body. This is my truth. It’s my experience. It’s how I identify. It’s my reality (actual reality notwithstanding). Transracial, transgender and transpecies lives matter (#TransLivesMatter), and I’m declaring myself an out and proud member of the LGBTTT community. Crazy, you say? Don’t judge me, hater. This is my race-species-gender identity and expression, whether real or perceived, and if you refuse to play along, then you’re violating my civil...

As if the case of Rachel Dolezal couldn’t get any sillier, anti-racism activist Tim Wise says that the “black” former NAACP chapter president once “tried to stop him from speaking” at Eastern Washington University because … “white folks can’t speak with any legitimacy to issues of racism.” Dolezal was a part-time professor at the college.

Ted Cruz said Saturday that the Confederate flag flying in front of their statehouse is “a question for South Carolina” to decide. He is not alone. Marco Rubio said the same: “This is an issue that they should debate and work through and not have a bunch of outsiders going in and telling them what to do.” Scott Walker and Carly Fiorina also feel it is an issue for South Carolina alone to decide. Funny. I seem to recall South Carolina trying to decide that issue in 1861, when on April 12 they opened fire on Fort Sumter, inaugurating the...

SAN FRANCISCO — President Obama’s motorcade, 20 vehicles deep, wound through the Highland Park neighborhood Friday in Southern California and stopped at the crest of a small hill. Only the president’s custom black sport-utility vehicle continued, veering up a steeper street until it disappeared. Somewhere out of the view of reporters, Obama got out and entered a makeshift recording studio in the garage of Marc Maron, host of a popular podcast. WTF? That is actually the name of Maron’s show . But it was as good a question as any to ask about why Obama was there to begin with....

This week, a pathological liar with a Mystic Tan and hair that has spawned dozens of thinkpieces is on a nationwide media blitz, voicing bizarre opinions on complicated issues to anyone holding a microphone. This person's shameless bid for media attention has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, wresting the national conversation from people and things that matter in exchange for a celebrity of which most of us can only dream. Are we talking about former NAACP chapter president/white person Rachel Dolezal, or lattice-haired clown and current presidential candidate Donald Trump? At this point, there's not much of a difference. The...

Chuck Todd aired a racist video featuring all black shooters on Meet The Press, and in the face of a mounting public backlash refused to apologize. Before the video aired, Todd tried to deflect away the obvious problem with what he was about to air, “The circumstances you are about to see are very different from the racist violence in Charleston. In this case, the inmates are African American that you’re going to hear from. But their lessons remain important. We simply ask you to look at this be a colorblind issue, as about just simply gun violence. If the...

In an emotional speech that heaped scorn and blame on America for failing to pass gun control measures while it supposedly perpetuates racism, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said white Americans need to “question our own assumptions and privilege.” “We still allow guns to fall into the hands of people whose hearts are filled with hate. You can’t watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that President Obama has said, ‘We must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction,’” she said to applause at the 83rd annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco. Clinton then outlined...

As the fight to remove the Confederate flag from the state House grounds in South Carolina heats up, politicians are weighing in on the debate.rWhat do you think? Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham defended displaying the flag, while former presidential candidate Mitt Romney called for its removal. Carly Fiorina called it a “symbol of racial hatred,” but stopped short of saying it should be removed. Sen. Ted Cruz said South Carolinians should decide what their state does. President Barack Obama’s spokesman said the flag belongs in a museum.rWhat do you think? But while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has weighed...

Voters who disagree with the Democratic party’s platform are only a few Confederate flag sightings away from donning a hood and burning some crosses, apparently. Is this why the U.S. is “essentially a nation of cowards” when it comes to discussing race, as former Attorney General Eric Holder famously said?

Witnesses say the white gunman who killed nine people at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., was quite vocal about his motives: He wanted to kill black people. Sylvia Johnson, whose cousin the Rev. Clementa Pinckney was one of three ministers killed in the church, said a survivor of the horror told her the shooter muttered, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." In Charleston, a slaughter in the sanctuary In Charleston, a slaughter in the sanctuary Facebook photos and other evidence suggest...

From immigration and the “Latino registration machine” to the GOP’s apparent inability to recognize the racial aspects of the Charleston church shooting, Real Time host Bill Maher had a field day with his panelists on Friday night’s show. Yet it’s the “Overtime” segment’s extra nuggets that made for some of the most WTF-worthy viewing, especially for this reaction from MSNBC’s Joy Reid: Of all the possible conversation topics, what could have triggered such a reaction from Reid? Oh nothing, really — just guest Ann Coulter‘s funny-but-serious answer to Maher’s question about “which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning...

Baltimore County schools are featured in a documentary that will air this weekend about President Barack Obama's initiative to help young men of color.. The film, which will run Sunday on the Discovery Channel and the Oprah Winfrey Network, is focused on the president's My Brother's Keeper effort, which uses private money to target job training and educational programs at young men. "I always see myself in them," Obama said in a portion of the documentary released Friday. "I do know what it means to come of age uncertain about your place and not clear about what it means to...

A shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday has shaken the country, leaving many reflecting on the state of race relations in the United States. Nine people, including Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator, were shot to death by accused gunman Dylann Storm Roof at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Authorities have called the shooting a hate crime. But how does one explain such a crime from a scientific perspective? What could lead someone to commit a racially motivated hate crime? What is racism -- and how can we...

BEIJING (AP) -- Often the target of U.S. human rights accusations, China wasted little time returning such charges following the shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina that left nine people dead. Elsewhere around the world, the attack renewed perceptions that Americans have too many guns and have yet to overcome racial tensions. Some said the attack reinforced their reservations about personal security in the U.S. - particularly as a non-white foreigner - while others said they'd still feel safe if they were to visit.

None of the Republican presidential hopefuls have made any comments on the Charleston Shooting regarding race or gun control. The Democrats candidates on the other hand call for more gun control and criticize police brutality in black communities, appealing to both black and white voters. On the other hand, Republicans try to target the white community, especially from the Southern states who do not want enforced gun control laws. In fact Republicans have push a liberal agenda when it comes to gun control. The fact that none of the Republican candidates discussed race and gun control issues after the Charleston...

Barack Obama can have a gun free zone when America has a Marxist free government. He alone bears much of the responsibility for the animosity and violence currently plaguing this nation. Purposely inciting race and class warfare, undermining Christian values, solely to galvanize your base and create a false narrative to justify pursuing your radical agenda is hardly unity and hope. If you push both white and black America to the brink of paranoia and hostility with divisive rhetoric, blatant favoritism and petulant political threats, what do you think is going to happen; barbeques and bonfires? Instead of honoring the...

Hillary Clinton didn't call The Donald out by name, but she suggested in an interview Thursday that comments like ones the real estate tycoon-turned-Republican presidential candidate made during his recent announcement speech could "trigger" events like this week’s church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. “We have to have a candid national conversation about race, and about discrimination, hatred, prejudice,” Clinton said of the Charleston shooting in an interview with Jon Ralston on his show “Ralston Live.” "Public discourse is sometimes hotter and more negative than it should be, which can, in my opinion, trigger someone who is less than stable.”...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just happened to be scheduled to appear on The View Thursday morning. But because of the deadly mass shooting at a black church in his home state last night, he did not get the chance to talk much about his presidential campaign. Instead, Graham joined the hosts to talk about the possible motives of the shooter, who left nine people dead including the church’s pastor and former state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. Graham wanted to assure viewers that this act is not a “window into the soul” of South Carolina. “It’s not who we are, it’s...

Reject them on this. Don't let the fomenters of hatred and the sowers of discord win. A terrible crime occurred in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night. 21 year old Dylann Roof, a drug-using white supremacist and repeated criminal offender, walked into a black church in the city during an evening Bible study, pulled out a gun, and killed nine members of the church. In this hideous act of terrorism, not just a community, but an entire nation was shaken to its core. Because of the actions of this disgusting little cretin, race relations in America have been severely damaged,...

Michael R. Bloomberg’s gun-control group has started financing its own news website, only days after a shooting at a historic back church in South Carolina left nine people dead. The new site, The Trace, is being preliminarily financed by the former New York mayor’s group Everytown for Gun Safety, which was created after the 2012 shootings at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left more than 20 people dead, most of them young children. The site’s editorial director is James Burnett, and it aims to be an independent nonprofit site — legally it’s a separate entity. It went live on...