She slammed down her white privilege like you’d slam down an American Express black card. Which is to say, with supreme confidence. Two months after posting video […]
Author: Leonard Pitts Jr.
America’s nightmare: Ascendant ignorance and raw intolerance
This is a column about nightmares. On Jan. 28, 1856, Margaret Garner slit the throat of her 2-year-old daughter, killing her. Slave catchers had closed in on […]
Power unrestrained serves only itself
As police misbehavior goes, it was a small thing. No one was killed, or shot, or even arrested. But in a sense, that gives it all the […]
My people are Americans
I’ve got something to say about “you people.” That, as you may recall, was how I referred, in a recent column, to Mike Pence and others who […]
Dear Mike Pence …
Dear Mike Pence: Most of them are fervid adherents of bizarre conspiracy theories and fascist dogmas that might yet burn this country down. Many of them spew […]
Republicans ‘Make Bigotry Great Again’
You might think it was a crime, but last week, a grand jury did not. The reference is to the case of one Jared Lafer. He is […]
It’s easy to see why they consider books dangerous
Here’s what happened when Ruby Bridges went to school in 1960. Four federal marshals escorted her. She walked through a mob of outraged white people. They called […]
You can starve an ideal only so long before you kill it altogether
Those pictures are traumatizing. That’s because they contain so much more than what’s in them, so much more than horse-mounted U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Rio […]
Activism is not a popularity contest
“He wears the clothes of a dissenter, but there’s a logo on his back.” — from “Damn It, Rose,” by Don Henley. When he died, Martin Luther […]
It’s shocking how easily it all comes back
It was a day that did not end. It went on for days, it went on for weeks, it went on for years. But then you look […]
