Category: Racism in America

Taking The Knee

By Mickey Friedman October 16, 2017 My journey to rediscover the history, heart and soul of the Co-operative Movement led me back to native son, W. E. B. Du Bois. And how appropriate, because few can shed greater insight into…

Co-operation – Part Four

October 8, 2017 By Mickey Friedman In “Black Reconstruction,” W.E.B. Du Bois asks and answers: “What did it mean to be a slave? It is hard to imagine it today … One estimate is that the maintenance of a slave…

The Trump Test

By Mickey Friedman December 29, 2016 Bewail and bemoan. Because you are more virtuous than those, insert here whatever variation of deplorable you prefer, who voted for that … With their explosions of righteous indignation, you’d imagine these vociferous critics…

Star Spangles

By Mickey Friedman October 5, 2016 Remember the black preacher some folks made a fuss about during Barack Obama’s first run for President? Jeremiah Wright, Mr. Obama’s pastor and the man who married him, and baptized his children. During the…

Black and Blue and Dead

July 28, 2016 By Mickey Friedman I mourn for the black and blue and dead. And if the well-meaning prevail, we’ll spend some days talking about what needs to be done. Judging by ESPN’s community conversation with President Obama it…

The Dark Side

By Mickey Friedman December 16, 2015 Probably the worst thing about The Trumpster’s reality TV posturing is that he has turned all things upside down, fiction into fact. Telling lies, big and little. Moving from an amusing bluster to a…

Terror: Red, White, and Blue

By Mickey Friedman June 30, 2015 We have been relentlessly focused on Muslim Extremism ever since 9/11. It is how we view terrorism. On TV shows, on news reports, in our nightmares, the terrorists are Muslims. Though it happened in…

It’s A Bird, Man!

March 10, 2015 By Mickey Friedman Surprise, surprise: It’s a Bird, Man! Hollywood, maker of dreams, never-ending schemes to fill movie theaters packed with people munching popcorn. One of many millions, I watched Neil Patrick Harris sing and dance his…

My Selma

By Mickey Friedman January 26, 2015 It’s sad but not unexpected that controversy roils about “Selma.” It is especially sad that the Motion Picture Academy has chosen not to honor the extraordinary work of David Oyelowo, its star, and Ava…

Walk a Black Mile

By Mickey Friedman September 2, 2014 Kevin Durant, young, gifted, and black is the second-best basketball player in the world. Michael Brown, eighteen, quite possibly gifted in other ways, was black, now dead. While Kajieme Powell, twenty-three, black, quite possibly…

I Miss You, Martin

September 16, 2013 By Mickey Friedman These are indeed great days for America. For as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the historic March on Washington, there are everywhere the clear signs that the racial divide is dissolving before us.…