In my lifetime – literally –\u00a0America integrated the military, made school segregation unconstitutional,\u00a0passed the Civil Rights Act, and opened the polls to everyone.\u00a0 Black men and women moved into leadership positions in business, medicine, education, politics, sports, and the military.\u00a0 I’ve lived in other countries.\u00a0 Believe me, we’ve done more to integrate minorities than any other society.\u00a0\u00a0This has led us to believe we’ve changed, shed old prejudices, become a better people.<\/p>\n
The Rutgers team\u00a0achieved greatness.\u00a0 They displayed strength, intelligence, dedication, grace, and discipline . . .\u00a0everything we admire.\u00a0 Then, in their moment of triumph,\u00a0a nationally syndicated\u00a0talk show host pisses all over them.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they’re women.\u00a0 Because they’re black.<\/p>\n
Maybe we haven’t changed that much.\u00a0 Maybe we haven’t changed at all.<\/p>\n
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies\u00a0– ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”<\/p>\n
– God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater<\/u>, 1965<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Did he live in a fantasy world, or what?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Could there possibly be a scrap of flesh left on Imus’ bones?\u00a0 Apparently so, because the media’s still munching on ’em.\u00a0 If the British press, with its fixation on the Royals, weren’t even worse than ours, I’d be embarrassed to be an American. Shame on every newsperson and news outlet that gave the story more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,16,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-current-events","category-media","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}