Tag Archives: racism

Expanding the Euro-centric “We”

“We” is changing. No, the grammar of that isn’t incorrect. What I mean is that the content of that pronoun –as in “we the people”– is changing. And this election is very much about that change. Columbus Day is still on the calendar. Most of us seem OK about the gift of an extra day […]

Native Americans and the meaning of “we”

This is something that never occurred to me before spending time in Mexico (where we go for a few weeks to reduce the length of winter). A very big difference between north and south of the border is in the content of “we.” Mexico is a much more racially homogenized society than ours. It’s one […]

Other kinds of racism

As the supporters of Elenita Muniz suggest, there is racism beyond that overt racism of which Muniz’s outraged critics protest themselves innocent. As part of the discussion of other forms of racism, I offer the following from my racial past. In high school in the 1950s, my English teacher told a story on herself: She’s […]

The Sterling racism story is a cause for celebration

Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers basketball team, has been banned for life for ugly racist sentiments. In this bad news/good news story, the good trumps the bad. Yes, shocking, overt racism at that level. But the reaction to it is, at least for anyone who was conscious during the 1960s and earlier, a […]