By Artur Davis, on Tue Jul 16, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Let’s start with what did not happen in a Sanford, Florida courtroom this past weekend. No, Trayvon Martin is not Emmett Till. Not unless you believe that a jury that deliberated for 67 minutes before acquitting Till’s killers is comparable to the panel that slogged for 12 consecutive hours, 16 hours total, to weigh George Zimmerman’s fate. Not unless you equate a travesty in Mississippi that allowed the victim’s mother to be quizzed about whether she had a burial policy on her child, that permitted defense lawyers to argue that acquittal would make the jurors’ white forefathers turn in their grave, with the universally applauded professionalism of the trial judge in Sanford, and an evidentiary playing field that seemed if anything tilted toward the prosecution. (Pre-trial rulings shielded the jury from ever hearing unflattering details that Trayvon sought to purchase a gun and had a poor disciplinary history in school).
No, the Zimmerman trial and the consternation in many quarters over the verdict is not responsible for reigniting racial tensions in America. To the contrary, it only laid bare what we already know too well—that too many blacks and whites circle each other in exaggerated fear, through lenses so fractured that a black child out of place can look like a menace, while a nervous, plodding white man can seem an affront to a young black man’s dignity and manhood.
And no, some of George Zimmerman’s defenders aren’t playing some vicious race card by pointing out the slew of teenaged black on black deaths in the inner city, and wondering why the outrage is more muted. To the contrary, they are speaking a truth that more black politicians and activists ought to be galvanized about: that the young, African American and poor are most at risk from each other.
I wish I could say with more confidence what actually did happen. Three weeks of obsessive trial watching did not resolve for me the question of which unwise act was more meaningful legally: one man recklessly following another and then confronting him without the license that a badge confers, or another young man landing blows and running the risk that the guy he struck might be bringing a gun to a fistfight. Forensic testimony didn’t shed light on whether Zimmerman pulled a trigger because he was enraged or because he was taking a pounding that had him thinking worse was coming. I still don’t know whether the prosecution’s failure to put on testimony from people in his church or community who knew the innocent, sunny side of Trayvon Martin was the product of overly cautious trial tactics or a result of looking and finding the cupboard bare.
And I wish, against all odds, that the millions of Americans who share those uncertainties won’t do the easiest thing. That would be to let the ambiguities of this case merge with disdain at the demagoguery over the result to create the moral dodge of wishing it would all fade away. The people who are about to overplay their outrage aren’t all wrong, not by any stretch. They are right to wonder how long it will take for the wrong interpretation of this trial to spin off a tragic imitation. They are right to remind us that Zimmerman’s defense looks nothing like the advocacy most defendants of any color receive when their freedom is imperiled: the lure of publicity and the money raised from the backlash at the media’s rush to judgment made Zimmerman a magnet for a high quality lawyering that is rare in criminal courtrooms. And they are right when they remind us that one’s view of the justice system correlates much too much with race and status. When the demonstrations and sensational tweets are done, all of the above will remain the same.
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 4:30 PM ET
Call me biased — and I the first to admit I am — but I think this latest attack on Alison Lundergan Grimes by Kentuckians for Strong Leadership (i.e., McConnell’s people being paid by unknown, independent sources) is, to use a poker term, pretty penny-ante.
To summarize: Businesses in which Grimes has a small minority share failed to file their annual statements on time.
Ironic, since her office accepts the statements? Sure.
But troubling? Of course not. She has no involvement in the administration of these companies.
They’ve obviously been digging up dirt to whack-a-mole her for many months; and if this is all they have, they are in real trouble:
Records show Grimes-owned Company in “Bad Standing” with Commonwealth of KY
Secretary of State records show Grimes’s Glenncase LLC not in good standing with her own office
(Frankfort) If Alison Grimes hopes to prove she can be an effective Senator for Kentucky, she needs to get her own affairs in order first. A review of records filed with the Secretary of State’s office – which Grimes runs – shows that a business she owns – Glenncase LLC – is not in good standing with the Commonwealth of Kentucky. How does a business stay in good standing? By filing a simple form…with the Secretary of State’s office.
“Grimes’ disastrous campaign launch showed she wasn’t ready for prime time,” said Scott Jennings, a Senior Advisor to Kentuckians for Strong Leadership. “Now we find that a business Grimes owns isn’t even in good standing with her own office. Kentucky voters are quickly learning that Grimes’ political ambition exceeds her ability.”
Publicly available records show Ms. Grimes as the organizer of Glenncase, LLC. Her personal financial disclosure shows that she is a current owner of the company as well. Both records are attached to this release.
“Perhaps if Mrs. Grimes read her own press releases she would have remembered to keep her affairs in order,” Jennings said, noting that the Secretary of State’s office sent out two releases (June 20 release; July 9 release) admonishing Kentucky business owners to file with the Commonwealth.
“A business simply needs to fill out the right paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office to be in good standing,” said Jennings. “Grimes’ latest unforced error shows a lack of understanding of her personal business operations and of her current elected office, and calls into question her ability to effectively represent Kentucky in the U.S. Senate,” said Jennings.
Please Note: Grimes’ businesses didn’t live up to their responsibilities under Kentucky law – and her own office’s requirements – until after we pointed out her failure. After that, they hastily filed the paperwork they should have submitted earlier.
In his second of his series of World Series of Poker articles for Newsweek/The Daily Beast (here’s Piece #1), The RP interviews leading card sharks (including New York Times pollster/pundit Nate Silver) to draw some lessons for hyper-partisan Washington from the green felt.
The marriage of political advocacy and poker wouldn’t surprise close observers of both; indeed, the two zero-sum games are really two sides of the same chip. As esteemed political prognosticator and poker savant Nate Silver told me, “politics and poker share the feature of being both very prosaic and very poetic”: Building your chip stack by grinding with careful mathematical calculations is akin to developing a sound get-out-the-vote effort through micro-targeted polling and door-to-door canvassing; riding an electric run of great cards and lucky flops is as thrilling as being uplifted by a gifted political orator. Of course, Silver—who poetically surged to near the top of the of the leaderboard on Day 1 of the Little One event, only to meet a prosaic bustout on Day 2—concedes that poker is the “more refreshing” of the two contests: “It’s pure, undistilled competition, with no intrigue, no B.S.”
There’s also no disputing that the two games require similar skill sets. A career in politics could in fact prepare someone quite well for a life at the poker table. Consider:
• Serving up fiery, red-meat orations at partisan rallies or stump-speaking amid hostile, heckling crowds at open events can help a poker player perfect the art of projecting confidence… or alternatively, vulnerability… and shape a poker face to confuse opponents as to the strength of any particular hand.
• Retail campaigning—the hand-shaking, back-slapping, and baby-kissing—enabling someone to observe, listen to, and really understand people, can be employed powerfully in a game in which you have to read the strength of your opponents’ hands by their facial expressions and body language.
• Late-night, smoke-filled, back-room, legislative negotiations—tests of endurance and concentration—provide invaluable practice for sitting long hours at tables with adversaries who’d say or do anything to provoke you or otherwise knock you off your calculated strategy.
• Waiting out filibuster blockades, partisan stall tactics, and special-interest foot-dragging—to win even the smallest of policy victories—can equip anyone with the resolve to withstand days of numbing boredom at the poker table, and to resist all temptations to take risky gambits that could send the player to the rail.
By Jonathan Miller, on Sat Jul 13, 2013 at 9:00 AM ET
If you’ve been following the legislative actions taken surrounding the Farm Bill in Washington, DC, this past month, you’ve seen some of the very worst about our current political system — deep hyper-partisan divides, bills passed without thorough discussion, secret power plays on behalf of special interests, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But one thing happened last week that represents the very best of American politics — the bi-partisan passage in the U.S. House of an amendment that would allow colleges and universities to grow hemp for research purposes in states where hemp production is allowed by state law (like Kentucky, Colorado and about a dozen other states.)
The amendment was co-sponored by Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.); and here in the Bluegrass State, it has the support of a broad partisan and ideological coalition, including conservative Senator Mitch McConnell, Tea Party champion Senator Rand Paul, and progressive icon Congressman John Yarmuth.
The lead advocate for hemp legalization in Kentucky is Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, and I was lucky to join him in Washington recently for high-level meetings on the bill with senior Obama Administration officials and even House Speaker John Boehner. (Click here to read about our efforts.)
Comer was thrilled about the recent development, telling WPSD-TV, Paducah, “It wasn’t that long ago that people told us we wouldn’t even get a sponsor for the bill in the state Senate. Now we have a state law for regulating hemp production, and one house of Congress has passed legislation to allow colleges and universities to grow hemp. This has been an amazing journey. And we’re not finished.”
So, please help us get across the finish line. Sign the petition below, and contact your Senator ASAP. Click here for an easy link.
U.S. Senators, Support Hemp Amendment to Farm Bill
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jul 4, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Happy 4th of July.
And some personal reflections on a firecracker of a political race that just transformed from a cheap sparkler barely worth lighting into an expensive battle between a couple of souped up Roman Candles, so to speak, in the fireworks department.
Here’s my unsolicited and completely ignored advice to the two major candidates for Kentucky’s US Senate seat.
To challenger and current Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes:
You are getting an overflowing of detailed advice from every corner of the state and nation.
My advice to you would be to ignore all the advice you are receiving and trust your instincts. Your instincts have served you well to date and I think you should play to your strengths. When in doubt, dig down and go with your gut.
I don’t mean you should blithely and arrogantly ignore the advice and commentary about the race and your campaign. Listen. But don’t be transfixed by it and certainly don’t be transformed by other’s opinions of what they say you should say and do.
Alison, you should embrace that you are the endearing and energetic youthful candidate who is very bright and knowledgeable— but also unpredictable. It’s not your youth or political party or campaign style that distinguishes you most for Senator McConnell. It’s the fact that Sen McConnell is the most prepared, disciplined, and predictable politician on the political scene today. And Alison Lundergan Grimes is just the opposite—and will daily be a stark contrast on a visceral level to Kentucky voters of both the benefits and shortcomings of being the kind of ultra-methodical political personality Senator McConnell is.
Watching Mitch’s campaign will be like sitting through a long strategic low scoring baseball game controlled by good pitching.
Watching Alison’s campaign will be like watching a pick-up street basketball game, by comparison. You are drawn to watch the street basketball game not because you admire a well coached , managed and disciplined team strategy but rather you watch because of the chance that something amazing may happen….even if unintended. You feel young again and want more passion and conviction that you can believe in from your US Senator. Or at least you think you do.
As for Senator McConnell, on the other hand, I would suggest running a disciplined tight ship and not taking a day or even several hours for granted. Be light and funny not exasperated and bored with your younger opponent. You must show respect and you must show manners reflective of the sexes in the South. Real Men, as it were, needn’t go for the jugular and would be better off going for the funny bone. You can still be tough on Alison but not viciously or gratuitously. Southern gentlemen and ladies will be watching. Humor will serve you better than detailed side-by-side hard hitting comparisons.
Sen McConnell, you have to adeptly balance the perception of not taking Secretary Grimes seriously enough while simultaneously being careful not being viewed as taking her too seriously. You want to be confident but not cocky. Constructive but not reactive. Like you are going through a necessary exercise you cheerfully have agreed to that requires concentration– but not perspiration.
Be the well oiled, disciplined and well-managed machine you know best how to be—and chip away methodically and relentlessly. Try to engage more and show your personality but only if natural and genuine. Don’t ever appear to be trying to out-Alison, Alison. Make her play your game on your playing field in your way without letting her be aware there are other options available to her.
Senator, unlike Alison, I would recommend taking my advice. But I realize that you are probably already 4 or 5 steps ahead of needing or wanting advice from a constituent from the other party explaining his suggestions to your US Senate campaign, which you’ve won now 5 times in a row. But approaching your campaign in the way I’ve described is playing to your strengths and you should, I believe, repeat the approaches from past campaign successes —but never count out your opponent’s intangible qualities or unpredictable style.
As a candidate, Alison has more potential than experience; more pluck than planning; and more personal appeal than detailed campaign strategy. Whether Alison is the underdog or not, she will be cheered as the strong and decisive lady who cut through all the political chatter and said “Yes” more as a matter of the heart than the head—- as contrasted with the seasoned and senior US Senator who is best recognized for saying “No” to new ideas with calculated élan and impunity
Sen. McConnell, your greatest strength, in gambling terms, is that you are essentially the House in this political gambit. Over time you may grind out your endearing and energetic opponent but will never be as appealing as she is in the process. The House never is. You play the odds and are a master tactician. But you’ll never be able to completely ground out your opponent. Alison will always be waiting in the wings and never seem to be winded while coming back to bat not with a long term strategy but willingness to swing for the fences time and time again
At the end of this race—returning to our earlier analogy— Team Mitch will be viewed as the solid and reliable master relief pitcher who is trying to close out a win in a game they have been ahead all 9 innings.
But Alison Lundergan Grimes will be walking, working and talking fast, frenetic and furiously just a few feet behind.
To borrow an analogy from another sport popular in Kentucky, boxing, Senator McConnell, if this political match is decided on points, you win. But if it’s decided by knockout, Alison is the likely winner.
This race will be decided largely, in my view, by voter mood during the final few months of the campaign. Voters–come next fall —may be in the mood for a masterful tactician relief pitcher to successfully take the field and close out another win. Or they may be a bit more restless and willing for change. And go with the up-and-comer just called up from the minors but taking the majors by storm. Only time and political, social and economic winds will tell.
The race won’t be about “Hope” or “Staying the course” or a dozen other political cliches. It will likely instead be about something more basic: To stick with what we know (sticking with the status quo) or trying something new (“rolling the dice,” so to speak). And how fitting it is that the race takes place in a state with a deep gambling tradition but today is ambivalent about expanding gaming.
And if both candidates completely and wisely ignore my unsolicited and free advice, we can expect to be witness to one of the smartest and dynamic; substantive and engaging political campaigns in the nation—and one that will be as difficult to predict as it will be reflective of emerging national trends. A bellwether, as they say up North. A doozy as we say down South.
And it will all happen right here in ‘lil ole Kentucky’s race for US Senate. The political race next year with something–in style and substance and symbolism—for everyone. And profound political meaning for our country.
Pull up a seat. And make sure you’re are registered. The nation is watching.
As I argued in these pages over a year ago, a full scale retreat from racially influenced academic admissions would likely have the following impact: it would shrink the African American populations of the most elite private colleges without drying up the substantial market that would still remain for the same students: in blunter terms, fewer blacks at Harvard and Stanford, but plenty of slots for blacks who lose the Ivy League lottery available at, say, the University of Virginia and Cal-Berkeley; and a sizable, high quality pool of suitors for any reasonably strong black applicant, at institutions ranging from the University of Florida to Michigan State, from William and Mary to SMU.
Of course, that mostly rosy scenario would have its share of costs. In a society that is always one celebrity’s comments away from having its racial fissures exposed, and where attitudes on culture and politics have become more and not less racially polarized during the last several years, color-blindness seems more a quixotic than a realistic assessment of America circa the Obama era. In a political world where ten of the last twelve presidential nominees have diplomas from Harvard or Yale, and every single Supreme Court justice has the exact same credentials, it is impossible to dismiss our most elite degrees as just another inconsequential perk. Add to that mix the undeniable evidence of a growing gap between the children of highly educated parents and the rest of the social universe, and it is hard to argue that a major retrenchment on race in the admissions process wouldn’t contribute at least marginally to the level of inequality.
All of the above (and perhaps, a plaintiff’s strategy that was overly cautious) explains why even the conservative wing of the Roberts Court ultimately turned squeamish about a sweeping verdict on affirmative action. The Court’s 7-1 ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas returning a challenge to the college’s admission process to a lower court for a more demanding, but not inevitably fatal, review seems right given the still unsettled state of play around race: short term, most universities will keep doing what they are doing, with some gradual, defensible move toward weighting class distinctions more heavily and eventually, a subtle shift toward more blacks with parents who are teachers and cops rather than state legislators or partners in top 100 law firms.
There is a cautionary note, though, for critics on the left who feared that Fisher would be a disaster. For liberals, dodging a loss on race in higher education should spare some time for acknowledging an inconvenient set of truths. Roughly two generations of policies strengthening campus diversity have done nothing to close long term student achievement gaps along racial lines: those policies, in spite of their merits, are still the most top-heavy kind of success. They are measures that at their most robust only impact a cohort of talented individuals who will excel by any legitimate standard whether affirmative action lives or dies. The much needier and (numerically larger) set of minority students remains low income kids locked by geography and poverty into poorly performing K-12 schools—to date, improving their prospects attracts scant attention at best from contemporary liberals whose recent campaigns have focused on more redistributionist outcomes on taxes and healthcare, unfettered sexual autonomy, and tougher environmental rules. And when today’s liberals have waded onto the education front, it has either been in the context of expanded daycare or pre-K programs, which by definition offer first-blush, not often sustainable hits, or in the form of fending off conservative alternatives like vouchers and more testing, without offering any specific platform of their own for un-achieving schools.
To be sure, conservatives can seem out of touch when they profess to see no moral cost in wiping out the consideration of diversity by universities who are trying to make their campuses look something like the society around them. But it is the political left that has advanced an agenda that like it or loathe it, has been exceedingly ambitious on the economic, social, and regulatory front, but notably tepid in the arena of failing classrooms and barely literate eighth graders.
By Michael Steele, on Thu Jun 27, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
“The Right of Citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude and that the Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
At the dawning of the 21st Century, the words of the 15th Amendment to our Nation’s Constitution remind us of one of the most precious gifts of liberty: to freely exercise your right to vote.
And yet, even the 15th Amendment—on its face—did not guarantee that the “right of citizens of the United States” to vote would not be denied as America emerged from the fog of civil war and into the new reality that those individuals once enslaved under the constitution were now entitled to exercise their rights as citizens under that same constitution.
It would not be long, however, before certain of the states, particularly in the south, responded to the demand of the 15th Amendment by devising a variety of tools to disenfranchise African American voters for reasons of “eligibility”. From literacy tests to pole taxes, from property ownership to oral and written examinations, States began to enact laws that ultimately “denied and abridged” African Americans their right to vote.
Moreover, when intimidation at the ballot box failed to curb the thirst for full access to the rights guaranteed by the Framers of the Constitution, more insidious and violent means such as lynchings, fire bombs and murder were used to “remind the Negro of his place” in American society.
In our society, all rights are ultimately protected by the ballot box, not the sword.
By virtue of the efforts to “legally” circumvent the dictates of the 15th Amendment as well as the escalation in violence against African Americans in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Selma and Montgomery Alabama the promise of the Constitution for African Americans and many other minorities—full and equal political rights—was like a munificent bequest from a pauper’s estate until the passage of the single most important piece of civil rights legislation in American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Both Democrats and Republicans were moved to respond to President Johnson’s voting initiative when he declared in his State of the Union Address “we shall overcome”. With the efforts of individuals like Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, and Congressman John Lewis laying the foundation for what would become an increasingly important political movement, Congress took up an historic challenge to end the “blight of racial discrimination in voting…[which had] infected the electoral process in parts of our county for nearly a century” under the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-Il).
The Act’s remedial structure is Section 5 which places a federal “pre-clearance” barrier against the adoption of any new voting practice or procedure by covered states and localities whose purpose or effect is to discriminate against minority voters. For over 40 years thereafter, the federal courts, and the Department of Justice worked hand-in-hand to make this promise of Section 5 a very potent reality.
While the Court did not strike down Section 5, it did strike down its operational core—Section 4—which establishes the coverage formula the federal government uses to determine which states and counties are subject to continued federal oversight. Chief Justice John Roberts in writing for the 5-4 majority noted “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Under the majority’s reasoning, “If Congress had started from scratch in 2006,” the last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, “it plainly could not have enacted the present coverage formula.”
For the Court to say that such coverage formulas are outdated is reasonable in the face of enormous improvements in minority voter registration and participation. Roberts illustrates his point by providing the following chart comparing voter registration numbers from 1965 to 2004.
As the Chief Justice stressed “There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act,” noting “[t]he Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process.” Roberts would conclude “Those extraordinary and unprecedented features were reauthorized — as if nothing had changed.” Likewise it is reasonable for the Court to want the Congress to update them.
Read the rest of… Michael Steele: Supreme Court ‘Gut’ the Voting Rights Act
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jun 25, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
More and more, public figures seem to be unable to extricate themselves from scandal gracefully, so much so that often the apology gets them in more trouble than the original misbehavior. Think about Bill Clinton parsing words about what ‘is’ means, Mark Sanford permanently making ‘hiking the Appalachian Trail’ into a joke, or anything relating to Anthony Weiner. In this day and age, it’s impossible to say or do anything without some sort of permanent online recording of it, and we are all human and likely to make mistakes, so it’s high time celebrities and politicians learn how to say “I’m sorry” without digging themselves an even deeper hole.
And the first lesson should be, say you’re sorry, you did something wrong, and then stop – don’t try to defend your actions, don’t explain it’s because your spouse didn’t understand you or your parents raised you that way. (This is a corollary of the advice my mother gave me when I became an instant step-parent of an 8-year-old through my first marriage. Mom said that when a kid asks a question, only answer the question, don’t volunteer additional details until asked. So if a toddler says, “Where did I come from?,” perhaps she only wants to know the city in which she was born, not how she was actually conceived. My first solo outing with my new stepdaughter was the week after we’d all seen the movie Look Who’s Talking, and sure enough she piped up, “You know those things swimming around in the very beginning of the movie? What were they?” Recollecting Mom’s words of wisdom, I answered, “Those are called sperm,” and held my breath. Nope, she was satisfied, she just wanted to know the word. Whew.)
Last week Paula Deen could’ve used my mother’s advice – the celebrity chef faced a growing storm over remarks she’d made in a recent deposition, acknowledging she’d used a racially offensive term, as well as rhapsodizing over the charms of a ‘plantation wedding’ with polite dark-skinned waiters in nice uniforms (and commenting about how many jokes there also were about Jews, gays, and rednecks, thereby managing to offend everyone else). Ms. Deen rushed out a series of rather odd videos, in which she apologized, but then continued to explain that she grew up in the south, that’s just how they all talk, she wasn’t a racist, lots of people use the ‘n’ word all the time, and some of her best friends, etc. On top of her appearances strangely resembling hostage videos, she compounded the damage by attempting to explain herself, then no-showing a much-hyped Today Show appearance (and Matt Lauer didn’t hesitate to tell his audience what happened). As the controversy continued to build (and more former employees came forward with claims of discrimination and hostile work environment), Food Network abruptly announced they were not renewing her contract.
People rushed to comment, with strong feelings on both sides. Her die-hard fans swore never to watch Food Network again and claimed that she was being punished for using language everyone else used, while plenty of older southern ladies chimed in that they’d NEVER used the word in question and resented Deen for claiming that everyone in her generation did. Pretty soon the online comments veered off into condemning rap music, accusing Deen of hypocricy for hiding her own diabetes until she got a lucrative pharmaceutical contract, and claiming that peole who didn’t cook with butter were unAmerican. Meanwhile it’s not like Deen is going to be impoverished, between her cookbooks, her restaurants, and various product lines – she’s carved out a unique niche for herself as the former inventor of a bacon-cheeseburger with a donut bun, who now offers slightly more healthy variations on down-home southern fare, and there are multiple websites devoted to her ‘Deenisms’ (such as “The more cheese, the better,” “I’m not your doctor, I’m your cook!,” and “If y’all will excuse me, I’m gonna make love to this here potato”).
I don’t know if a sparser apology would have changed Food Network’s decision, but Deen didn’t do herself any favors by her awkward explanations, including insisting that she just adored all her African-American employees (one of whom she jokingly accused of blending in with a blackboard because he was so dark), and claiming that most plantation-owners treated their slaves like valued members of the family. I do hope she recovers from this debacle – partly because she’s just too darned entertaining to disappear (is there anyone else you can imagine teaching us how to make deep-fried stuffing-on-a-stick?), and partly because I think she sincerely regrets her mistake. (And also because thanks to her, news outlets didn’t have room to revel in details about the Kim Kardashian/Kanye West baby, other than the fact that they have probably topped Gwyneth Paltrow and Frank Zappa in the you-did-WHAT-to-your-kid? baby naming insanity contest.) (The baby’s name is North, by the way – seems way better than Apple or Moon Unit at first, but just think about it for a bit.)
Anyway, it’s been a very entertaining few days, so here’s a song commemorating the whole story:
And no, some of George Zimmerman’s defenders aren’t playing some vicious race card by pointing out the slew of teenaged black on black deaths in the inner city, and wondering why the outrage is more muted. To the contrary, they are speaking a truth that more black politicians and activists ought to be galvanized about: that the young, African American and poor are most at risk from each other.
