Mike Elk couldn't have been more right in his thinking about what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have thought of the Teabaggers, Birthers, etc. He would have seen that those faces that at first glance seem twisted in anger are really twisted in pain. He would recognize those faces...

One of the teachers who influenced me the most was Mr. Harrison, my high school English teacher. He taught me that the purpose of education was not to teach me what to think, but how to think -- how to examine and question what I was told; to not merely...

As the parent of a small child -- who is apparently entering the "terrible twos" a few months early -- I tend to put things in that context sometimes.

What we're seeing from the health care town halls, what we've seen from the "birthers" and what we saw during...

School will soon start again, and countless LGBT youth will return to classrooms all over the country. Some will return to schools where they find support and protection from harassment -- where administrators and teachers work together to ensure a safe learning environment to all students.

Some...

In an effort to defeat universal health care, conservatives are engaging in a campaign of lies that will ultimately cause more families to suffer needlessly at a most painful time. As someone who worked for years with end-of-life care issues, and spent years working in the HIV/AIDS community, I cannot...

A few years ago, when we still had time for such things, my husband and I belonged to a book group. One of the last books the group read before it's leader moved away (and, having become a first-time parent that year, I declined to be in charge of much...

Henry Louis Gates and I are very different people. He is a Harvard Professor. The closest I got to the Ivy League was a weekend visit to Yale. He is a successful author. I am a blogger whose aspirations may outstrip his abilities. He is world renowned. I am, well,...

I was probably an annoying person to have around if you were watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. I was so frustrated listening to them that I couldn't help ... um ... talking back to the television. There is, after all, only so much the mind can take before it explodes.

In many ways, the discussion of race in America — particularly as it relates to today's issues (the economy, health care, education) — brings to mind the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Different people have a firm grasp on part of the truth in the...

National Urban League head Mark Morial recently described the state of black America today as "the best of times and the worst of times." He's right.

The inauguration of the first African-American president was a moment worth celebrating as an undeniable example of the progress we've...

Many people -- including the president himself -- have mentioned the absurdity of judging Obama's success at cleaning up messes that were decades in the making, based on his first 100 days in office. It's equally absurd to expect the first 100 days in the administration of our first...

Every morning, my neighbor and her six-year-old daughter share a bus stop with a terrorist -- or a member of a terrorist organization, at least. That's distressing enough, because my son rides the same school bus, but I recently discovered that the terrorist at my son's bus stop is me;...

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned...

See Part One.

There's a literary reference that comes to mind when I consider "Drop Dead" conservatism. (My English Lit. degree occasionally comes in handy.) It's a Shakespearean reference, actually, to a character from one of his lesser known plays.

"Drop Dead." That's the best answer that some conservatives have been able to offer to a country in teeth of the worst financial crisis we've faced in a generation. When the Wall Street crisis loomed and the bailout was being debated:

Wow. It's kind of unbelievable, really. You take something away from people, and they get angry. Take away hard won rights, and equal protection for those they love, and people get really angry.

In the week since, California has seen an outpouring of demonstrations ranging from quiet vigils...

It has been a strange couple of weeks. Just last week, I saw something that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, and felt like I was witnessing it for all my ancestors who didn't live to see a hope fulfilled. But -- with a "twoness of being"...

Ed. Note: I plan on writing something about black voters, the passage of proposition 8 in California, and the discussion that has ensued about whether the former failed in part because of the latter. In the meantime, I thought I'd republish some old content that might be relevant to the...

Ed. Note: I plan on writing something about black voters, the passage of proposition 8 in California, and the discussion that has ensued about whether the former failed in part because of the latter. In the meantime, I thought I'd republish some old content that might be relevant to the...

Ed. Note: I plan on writing something about black voters, the passage of proposition 8 in California, and the discussion that has ensued about whether the former failed in part because of the latter. In the meantime, I thought I'd republish some old content that might be relevant to the...