NEWS
By Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun | November 9, 2013
On a brisk afternoon 50 years ago, Timothy Hyman snapped pictures as officials cut a ribbon to open the newest stretch of Interstate 95, connecting Baltimore to Delaware and onward north to Maine. Amid the large crowd gathered at the Maryland-Delaware border, Hyman still remembers the civil rights advocates picketing just outside his frame, calling for the interstate to be interracial and to further advance their cause. In that moment, Hyman said he saw a dual promise - of travel without congestion, but also without oppression.
NEWS
August 1, 2013
I agreed with almost everything that Thomas F. Schaller said in his recent column on race relations ("A welcome call for soul-searching about race," July 24). I think he was correct in writing that President Barack Obama "cannot be easily dismissed with the usual racial tropes. That is, so long as he keeps his mouth shut about race matters, which for most of his presidency he has. " President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, in their positions, have sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution and uphold the laws of this country, including our system of jurisprudence.
NEWS
By Monique L. Dixon | July 29, 2013
In the past month, I anxiously awaited the outcomes of several important civil rights and criminal justice court decisions. But the case that triggered the strongest and most varied emotions was the criminal trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman, who followed, shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In the aftermath of the verdict, President Barack Obama, facing a divided nation, encouraged Americans to channel their passionate views into calm reflection and action. He commented that African-Americans' dismay about the verdict could be explained by our experiences and the history of race relations in the U.S. While he did not specify historical events, I immediately thought about how black America endured almost 250 years of enslavement during which black families, particularly men and boys, were brutalized and murdered simply because of their race.
NEWS
July 27, 2013
Lisa Akchin hit the nail on the head on how to advance race relations in this country when she decided "to stop seeing a statistic when I approached a black man on the street and begin seeing an individual coming from somewhere and going somewhere" ( "Moving from fear to friendliness," July 25). That's great advice. This method of being aware of the assumptions that spring up in your mind when seeing a person of another race, and then finding you can fairly quickly negate those assumptions by purposely looking at The Other as an individual human being instead (with race as only an afterthought)
NEWS
July 23, 2013
I know first hand that racism still exists in America, but I keep wondering why so many presume it was the key factor in the Zimmerman-Martin tragedy or the jury's decision ("For white Americans, it's time to listen," July 21). Those who weren't in the courtroom didn't hear 50-some witnesses, didn't see the photos, weren't privy to 16 hours of deliberation. Few outraged by the jury's decision seem to care how plagued with crime the neighborhood was, nor do they seem to care about Trayvon Martin's character.
NEWS
June 24, 2013
The best that can be said for the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action in college admissions is that it did not immediately and totally ban the practice. But the decision to send a University of Texas at Austin case back to the appeals court from which it came with instructions that the circumstances be scrutinized more closely certainly suggests that the justices are dubious about the continued need for the policy. That's hardly an encouraging sign as the court readies for a ruling in a case on whether a critical section of the Voting Rights Act - one that requires certain Southern states to have changes in voting law screened by the U.S. Department of Justice - is not constitutional after nearly five decades in use (and despite unsuccessful legal challenges in the past)