Welcome

Recent essays

• January 24 2012 : Gingrich Confronts History in South Carolina
  

  “It's not that I'm a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people,” announced the victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Republican voters [only 2% were African Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial language as straight talking. He eagerly strummed racial themes—Black urban pupils serve as assistant janitors to learn what is really needed in school which is how to stick to a job, make and spend money. And then he suggested the urban poor [...]

• January 16 2012 : Black Indians: How NOT to Celebrate an Anniversary
  

  As 2011 ended the U.S. Senate voted 92 to 6 for the McCain-Levin amendments [S 1867] to the National Defense Authorization Act. In the name of fighting terrorism, an astounding majority of Democratic and Republican leaders granted unlimited authority to the President [and future Presidents] and the Army to arrest anyone, citizen or foreigner, here or abroad, and imprison them in Poland, Pennsylvania, or Guantanamo or anywhere else—indefinitely. 92 of our Senators agreed the detained could be denied access to [...]

• January 6 2012 : Black Indians: A Personal Journey
  

  The personal sojourn that led to a book named Black Indians began in the 1930s and my father, Ben Katz, who fell in love with African American blues and jazz music. He first had a large 78-rpm record collection, and then a large collection of African American history books and pictures. I had to be one of the few white kids in the world who went to sleep listening to Bessie Smith, Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong, and woke up [...]