In America, every accused person is innocent until proven guilty, right? Well, we may profess such lofty thoughts, but the cold reality is that most people believe that if you are in jail, you gotta be guilty of something. Look no further than the way people have reacted to Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., the prime suspect … Read more
Until the late sixties, in much of the country, the pigmentation differences between my wife and I would have made us felons had we tried to get married. According to one Virginia judge in 1959, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents.…The fact that … Read more
Here we go again. A young, white, blond-haired blue-eyed woman is abducted, presumably by some dark-skinned nefarious person. The media play swells into hyper, almost orgiastic über-coverage. The military gets drafted to search for the damsel in distress, and, in the latest round, the governor calls for the death penalty and holds candlelight vigils. Excuse … Read more
Remember those low-budget horror films from the 1950s? Other-worldly music would play, and then a creepy creature would land its spaceship in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, slither out, and tell the first startled Earthling, “Take me to your leader.” Now, as then, we laugh at the idea that there could possibly be … Read more
You may shoot me with your words,But still, like air, I’ll rise.-Maya Angelou Ever since she toppled incumbent Jackie Cherryhomes in 2001, Minneapolis Fifth Ward council member Natalie Johnson Lee, the council’s lone African-American woman, has continued to rise. She has successfully deflected and deflated those wanting to blow her off-especially the North Side wannabes … Read more
One of my oldest friends, actor Joseph C. Phillips (mayor on CBS’s The District), who grew up black, hopeful, and liberal, but is now African-American, angry, and conservative, recently asked me how I felt about the latest Ward Connerly initiative. Connerly, the black University of California regent who convinced voters to make affirmative action verboten … Read more
What do the Episcopal Church and Kobe Bryant have in common? Both are being forced to face the consequences of earlier moral commitments that may take them to places they never wanted to go. For the Episcopal Church, the initial commitment was to social equality. For Kobe, it was marital fidelity. Next year at this … Read more
“Equal justice under law.” These words, emblazoned over the entrance to the United States Supreme Court in Washington, really represent the “bottom line” of our court system. No matter who you are—Joe Blow or Joe Biernat—if you do the crime, you should get the same time. In unguarded moments, however, lawyers will tell you what … Read more
Pitching great Satchel Paige used to tell his teammates to never look back, “because something may be gaining on you.” This is great advice, especially if you are R.T. Rybak and Don Samuels is the guy gaining on you. Why? Because key Minneapolis political insiders increasingly view Mayor Rybak as a “sound bite” schmoozer and … Read more
On March 20, 2003, Quinn Keating Collins made his grand entrance on planet Earth. On April 29, 2003, his grandfather, Clinton Clarence Collins, Sr., took his final bow. My two oldest sons, Joseph and Alexander, knew their grandfather and heard, probably more times than they wanted to, the stories of Mississippi cross-burnings and ducking bullets … Read more