Leonard Pitts Jr. stories, Page 2

Back in the day, his FBI file dubbed him “an arrogant Negro.” But then, people often mistook principle for arrogance whenever African Americans insisted on justice. Sometimes, they still do. As recently as 2017, after all, much of white America vilified NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national...

“There’s a choice we’re making. We’re saving our own lives.” — from “We Are The World” Yes, this is early. That ritual where the columnist assigns the year a theme doesn’t usually begin until December. But the view from this pew is that, where 2022 is concerned, said theme already...

We’ll get to the Nazi flags in a moment. First, however, let us turn to Merriam-Webster for clarification of a point recently made in this space that left a few of you vexed. It came in a passage that noted the right wing’s attempted takeover of state voting apparatuses and...

Dear Attorney General Merrick Garland: You are doubtless familiar with the old adage that, “The wheels of justice may grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.” As we watch your Justice Department’s ongoing investigation of the criminal conspiracy that was the Trump White House, many of us can readily vouch...

They called it “massive resistance.” That, some of you may recall, was what Virginia dubbed its campaign of defiance of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed school segregation. The Virginia crusade was just part of a drive by conservatives all over the South to...

“Donald was enabled from the beginning …” — Mary L. Trump, “Too Much and Never Enough” Liz Cheney sure called that one. In her opening statement at the July 12 hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Wyoming congresswoman advised America of a change in strategy...

He couldn’t get a date. Or he hated Black people. Or he was bullied in school. If any of that sounds familiar, it should. Every time there’s a mass shooting in this country — which, as a functional matter, pretty much means every day — those are the kinds of...

So what does all this tell us about justice? “All this” meaning the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell got 20 years June 28 and the next day, R. Kelly got 30. It was, make no mistake, an indisputably good thing to see those punishments handed down. And it’s hard to blame...

Dear Republicans: That’s what a free woman looks like. Meaning, of course, Cassidy Hutchinson, a young former aide in Donald Trump’s White House, who appeared before the House committee investigating the attempted coup of Jan. 6. Free of the need to defend the indefensible or rationalize the irrational — free,...

This is not just another setback. Anyone who’s lived long enough has seen the Supreme Court issue a ruling they didn’t like. This is not that. No, what made the ruling that felled Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, more than just another disappointment, what...

Eighty-three years ago, Mr. Smith went to Washington. Last Tuesday, Lady Ruby did, too. Georgia election workers Ruby “Lady Ruby” Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye Moss — “Shaye” to her friends — appeared last week before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Like the title character in...

She’s not exactly starving for affirmation. To the contrary, Malala Yousafzai is a global icon. Since 2012 when, as a 15-year-old Pakistani girl, she survived being shot in the head by a Taliban thug, she has met with heads of state, addressed the United Nations and won the Nobel Peace...

It comes at the end. After his supporters march on the U.S. Capitol chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” after they breach police barricades, after they smash windows and climb through, after they chant “Hang Mike Pence” and erect a gallows for that purpose, after one of them yells, “White power!”...

It opens with a woman’s voice and a black screen. “I had no other options,” she says. “I wanted it over with.” Then you see her. White, gray-haired, maybe somewhere in her 70s. And she continues her story. “I didn’t care how it was done. I was that desperate.” Someone...

Where were you when we needed you? That’s my blanket response to a persistent trickle of emails from readers who keep asking me to, in effect, stop using the word “conservative” when I mean “crazy.” Or “fascist.” Or “mean.” Which is to say that these people, most of whom would...

So much for the good guy with a gun. That, you will recall, was NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s preferred solution to America’s epidemic of firearms violence. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun,” he said, “is a good guy with a gun.” He said this on...

“Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break? Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake?” — Bruce Springsteen, “Last To Die” And once again: Why? It’s the question we always find ourselves asking in moments like this, the understanding we always seek as bodies lay strewn and the...

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy still doesn’t know what hit him. That’s the only logical conclusion following a Sunday tweet in which he responded to the political firestorm he ignited last week. For those who missed it, it came when an interviewer from Politico asked about his state’s high rates of...

So it looks like they finally found their red line. Meaning the Republican Party. The GOP seems to have finally identified the barrier no Republican may be allowed to cross. Many of us had wondered where it was — or even if it was. We were genuinely, if morbidly, curious...

Come and let us pity white people. They are the real victims here. That, in essence, is the battle cry that’s powered much of American politics for the last 30 years, the last 15 in particular. It has echoed from the halls of government to the set of Fox “News”...

It’s different when it’s your home. I speak from experience. For 46 years, I’ve made my living by expressing my opinions. And an opinion — at least when it’s on a matter of substance — is by definition a divisive thing. That’s why social etiquette requires that you steer clear...

To the Honorable Clarence Thomas, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: Dear Sir: Have you ever met your wife? Yes, it’s an impudent question, but it seems justified by the speech you gave Friday at a judicial conference in Atlanta and a question-and-answer session that followed....

So let’s talk about That Word. Meaning the word the political left was using to define itself until the political right got hold of it and made it an object of ridicule. The word that quickly became unusable, even faintly embarrassing. No, the word is not “woke.” It is, rather,...

“I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in … .” — Matthew 25:43 A few words on creating God. Last week, Right Wing Watch, the liberal watchdog group, flagged online video of a recent interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by one Michael Voris of Church Militant,...

I’m probably out of step with many of you. Everywhere I turn, folks are discussing Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. I certainly get it. After all, it was Monday’s biggest domestic story. The sale sparked fears that the petulant billionaire will turn one of the world’s leading social-media platforms into...