Leonard Pitts Jr. stories, Page 6

There is no such thing as the united States. As an era of medical mask mandates draws to a close and we begin to ponder lessons learned, that one should top the list. Not to overstate the case. To our credit, we are a nation that has always united in...

You didn’t see what you thought you saw. You got it wrong, you misunderstood. Your memory is playing tricks. But who can blame you? It was so long ago. We’re talking way back on Jan 6. That’s four whole months. That’s a third of a year! Who can remember back...

Fifty years ago. Left-wing terrorists exploded a bomb at the U.S. Capitol. An Army officer was convicted in the massacre of civilians at My Lai. Vietnam chewed up another 2,414 American lives. And across the country, needles were lowered for the first time to the grooved surface of a certain...

Not that the subject has ever been easy. No, as has often been noted in this space, this country has been positively Herculean in its effort to remain ignorant of African American history. From schools trying to ban it to state laws restricting it, to textbooks telling lies about it,...

That, as you may recall, was the explanation attorney Joseph Hurley offered last week at a court hearing for his client, accused Capitol insurrectionist Anthony Antonio, who is facing five federal charges for his role in the attack. “You want war?” he reportedly yelled to police. “We got war! 1776...

We keep hitting new lows. So perhaps we ought not be surprised that the GOP, the party that brought us the insurrection of Jan. 6, now presents the public, if figurative, execution of Liz Cheney. At this writing, she is not yet politically dead, but the vultures are certainly tying...

Its Constitution fixed the value of African Americans at three-fifths that of other humans. Its bloodiest war was over whether they should be enslaved. It has no institution — not one — that is free of racial discrimination. Yet, we are supposed to take seriously those who now ask if...

Thirty years ago, when I was still a music critic, I received a letter from a lady who informed me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t know what I was talking about. This was after I’d written about the origins of gospel music, a subject on which I considered...

An open letter to the children. We owe you an apology. Meaning all of us in the generations above you. We had one job where you were concerned, and that was to keep you safe. “Save the children,” pleaded a man named Marvin Gaye a long time ago. But we...

Look, I get it, OK? A lot of this, you plain do not understand. Much of it leaves you confused. Well, me too. I have no idea what it must be like to grow up feeling as if you were assigned the wrong body, a girl with boy genitalia or...

Sorry, but this is not an open-and-shut case. This is not Tamir Rice, Philando Castile or Walter Scott, unarmed and clearly executed on camera by police. No, the bodycam video of last week’s killing of a 16-year-old Black girl named Ma’Khia Bryant tells a more complicated story. In it, we...

I sat there trying to remember how to breathe. I suspect I had that in common with people — particularly African American people — all over the country. Didn’t we all hold our breath as we awaited the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin? Then that verdict was read....

“The anguish we are suffering cannot translate into violence.” So said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey last week in the wake of yet another police killing of yet another unarmed African American man. The sentiment was altogether fitting and proper, especially given that his city was the epicenter of a national...

There is nothing sacred about nine. The number was not carried down from a mountain on stone tablets, nor did it appear in a burning bush. In fact, before the Supreme Court contained nine justices, it contained six, the number fixed when the tribunal was established in 1789. Then, in...

Apparently, Robert Pape was surprised. Notwithstanding earlier research or the alarm raised in this and other forums, Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, expected, when he began studying the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, to find the rioters acted out of economic anxiety....

America is on trial. Or at least, that is the conviction of many observers as Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, faces judge and jury in the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man. America on trial: it’s a headline in Time, the Toronto Star and Agence...

Dear Republicans: Let’s just say this plainly. You are a people lacking integrity and honor. And you have not a thimbleful of respect for one of this nation’s most sacred principles: Meaning equality under the law. One person, one vote. That harsh appraisal is necessitated by your response to losing...

So, it seems the church is shrinking. The mosque and synagogue, too, for that matter. Not that this is breaking news. It has long been known that the numbers of Americans who belong to religious organizations are dwindling. But last week, that decline hit a milestone. For the first time...

We need to talk about what happened last month when police confronted a mentally disturbed man at a convenience store near Washington, D.C. They helped him. Yes, that was a bait-and-switch. But it wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t primed to expect something worse. Certainly, you’d be justified, given some...

“This is a violent civilization — if civilization’s where I am.” — Gil Scott-Heron, “Gun” • • • Alexis Knutson doesn’t want to see her friend reduced. That friend, she told The New York Times, “had the biggest, brightest smile. She always just had these dimples that, especially when she...

On the issue of guns, John Kavanagh has a record unblemished by sanity. Indeed, a scroll through Vote Smart, the nonpartisan, nonprofit voter information clearinghouse, suggests the Arizona state lawmaker has never met a pro-gun measure he didn’t like. That includes bills authorizing concealed carry in public buildings, firearms sales...

He was having a bad day. So said Cherokee County Sheriff’s spokesman Jay Baker by way of explaining last week’s mass shootings at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. The suspect, a 21-year-old white man whose name won’t be used here, is said to have told police he suffers a sex addiction...

Dear Sen. Tim Scott: Sadly, it is no longer much of a surprise when an official of your party says some racially offensive thing. From calling Barack Obama “uppity” and “boy,” to decrying an imaginary “war on whites,” to declaring the world’s Black and brown nations “(expletive)hole countries,” racial offense...

No, Dr. Seuss hasn’t been “canceled.” Granted, you’d never know it from the ruckus that erupted after Theodor Seuss Geisel’s estate decided to stop publishing six lesser-known titles by the celebrated children’s book author because they contained offensive racial stereotypes. We’re talking Asians with “their eyes at a slant” and...

You’re not reading this on a smartphone or tablet, are you? I hope not, for your sake. They say the government can use imperceptible fluctuations in the light to reprogram your brain waves, giving them complete control over your thoughts and actions. You’ll be Joe Biden’s zombie and you won’t...