Leonard Pitts Jr. stories, Page 4

These days, we have Denzel Washington. We have Viola Davis, Kevin Hart and Jamie Foxx. We have Octavia Spencer, Regina King and Samuel L. Jackson. We have Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Taraji P. Henson, Michael B. Jordan, Mahershala Ali, Tiffany Haddish and Will Smith. We have, in other words, a...

Cathartic. That’s what it was. Page through the whole dictionary looking for a better word to describe President Biden’s speech on the first anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and you will not find one. The address, delivered from Statuary Hall, which so memorably was besieged one...

It was an act of country love. This is what we have repeatedly been told about the insurrection at the Capitol, one year ago this week. The claim began, as brazen lies so often seem to, with Donald Trump. “These are the things and events that happen,” he said, “when...

Once again, carnage goes to school. Once again, American students are used for target practice. But conservative leaders are on the case. Recognizing the ongoing threat to our children, they know it’s time for decisive action. It’s time to do something about books. And if you expected that sentence to...

So it turns out I’m a friend of Donald Trump’s. In fact, I’m one of his top supporters. Also, my name is Joe. If this surprises you, imagine how I feel. Those revelations come by way of Trump himself in emails that have deluged my inbox for months. From them,...

Why would they do this? That question rises inevitably from a new wave of so-called flash-mob robberies, thieves by the dozens invading retail stores to simply take what they want. It’s happened in California, Illinois, Minnesota and Maryland. Retailers ranging from Nordstrom to 7-Eleven have been hit. For some, the...

The first feeling is relief. On Wednesday in Brunswick, Ga., three white men — Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan — were found guilty of felony murder in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. And one doesn’t feel joy, nor even vindication. Nope. Only relief. Justice...

Abraham could have asked for anything. The Make-A-Wish folks stood ready to make a dream come true for the 13-year-old boy, who has aplastic anemia, a life-threatening blood disorder. But Adeola “Abraham” Olagbegi didn’t ask for a PS5 or a day with LeBron James. No, he just wanted to feed...

It’s like something out of middle school. Rep. Paul Gosar posts video of an asinine anime that depicts him violently murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Facing censure in the House, he is defended by Rep. Lauren Boebert, who in the process slags Rep. Ilhan Omar as a member of something she...

The Nazis are coming. That, to a distressing extent, is the crux of the argument being mounted by some of those who refuse to obey vaccine mandates. On Sunday, a group of them even showed up at the Bronx office of New York State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz with yellow Stars...

Isabella Tichenor killed herself a few days ago. She was 10 years old. Her mother, Brittany Tichenor-Cox, said last week that her daughter — she called her “Izzy” — had been the target of ongoing racist abuse from classmates at her school in North Salt Lake, Utah. Izzy, who was...

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 of herself in the mob of right-wing thugs who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Jenna Ryan went on Twitter to taunt her detractors. “Definitely...

It was reported last week that 34 New York City police officers took unpaid leave rather than comply with that city’s vaccine mandate. For this, New Yorkers should thank them. And then find a way to fire them. Supposedly, according to the city’s police unions, as many as 10,000 uniformed...

Maybe white students deserve more credit than they get. Maybe — apologies to The Who — the kids are all right. Leo Glazé seems to think so, based on a tweet I chanced upon last week. In it, he described himself as an educator who has spent his career in...

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 the Cincinnati safe house to which Garner, an African American woman, had fled, seeking freedom. She tried to kill two of her other...

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 more impact. Shorn of the distracting emotionalism of bloodshed or false arrest, last week’s video recording of an incident between a subway rider...

Condoleezza Rice wants to move on. She concedes that what happened on Jan. 6 was “wrong.” It was, she told the hosts of “The View” last week, an “assault on law and order, and an assault on our democratic processes.” And Rice, a former national security adviser and secretary of...

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 have apparently sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Florida taco bowl connoisseur who used to be president. It left a...

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 a noxious slurry of racial, religious and sexual hatreds that defame the principles we purport to hold dear. And on Jan. 6 of...

Maybe Facebook can’t be fixed. Did anyone ever think of that? As a whistleblower releases damning information, as Congress holds another hearing into the harm the company does, the implicit assumption is that the social-media giant can be reformed, that with the right combination of algorithmic tweaks and legislative remedies,...

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 a white man in his 20s who, in September of last year, was driving in Johnson City, Tenn., when he came upon a...

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 her names. They threatened to poison her. And to lynch her. They held up a small casket with a black doll inside. One...

“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.” — from “Wild World” by Cat Stevens This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate. No telling how many of you...

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 Grande in Texas, running down and flogging would-be Haitian immigrants. No, those pictures contain George Floyd and forced removal from ancestral land, contain...

What do you do when a president is crazy? That’s essentially the question Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced in the twilight days of the Trump administration. His answer, as reported by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their forthcoming book, “Peril,” has some people...