In 1772, Phillis Wheatley was tried in the city of Boston for writing poetry. It wasn't the content of her poems that they objected to; it was the fact that she was a black woman, and a slave (since the North had not yet abolished slavery). The white men who tried her were ...read more
There's been a great deal of debate over Serena Williams' loss in the U.S. Open this weekend to Naomi Osaka, with some arguing that the penalties leveled on her by umpire Carlos Ramos were merited, and others arguing they were the result of his racial blindness. While I stand on ...read more
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice. You was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. Slavery is to blacks as the ...read more
"Alabama's the Confederacy," Fran Liebowitz said on Real Time last year, correcting Bill Maher's assertion that it was the heartland. Its long association with slavery, racism, and pedophilic Senate candidates will take a long time to shake. Its current governor, Kay Ivey, ...read more
The state of Alabama continues to stain the nation as it shows us one of the many ways America’s racist legacy persists. Every fourth Monday in April, Alabama consciously chooses to honor hate and the myth of white supremacy by celebrating Confederate Memorial Day – a state ...read more
Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth apparently wasn't paying attention during history classes during school. Either that or he has willfully ignored the lessons about his country's atrocious history of ethnic genocide, slavery, and human rights abuses. On a truly mind bending rant ...read more
Tragedy struck Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend, and once again, hatred is at the center of the conversation in America. White supremacists marched in the middle of the night showing their anger for the impending removal of the Robert E. Lee confederate statue. The ...read more
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has now solidified his standing as Black America's leading sellout with comments regarding slavery so incomprehensibly stupid and offensive it is a wonder he is aware of his own ethnicity. Speaking on Monday to department ...read more
Shamefully, the next President of the United States will be an unrepentant racist and sexual predator. Sadly, this can be largely traced back to the majority of white Americans who voted him in, and the anti-democratic Electoral College, but if we look at historical and ...read more
Only on Fox News would you see this kind of reaction to First Lady Michelle Obama's triumph of a speech at the DNC Monday night. If you recall, she used the line about the White House being built by slaves, a reference she's used before: Leave it to Bill O'Reilly to boil that ...read more
One of the most insidious forms of racism comes from people who genuinely do not believe they are racist. Their prejudice and xenophobia is so deeply ingrained that they create a distorted world view to justify their warped beliefs about race. Bill O'Reilly is a classic ...read more
For social justice-minded liberals of a certain age, it has always been an impossible dream that something as politically radioactive as slavery reparations would ever become an issue in a presidential campaign, but here we are. For good or for bad, insurgent Democratic primary ...read more
What with all the Confederate apologism, "confusion" about the Charleston shooter's motives, and concern-trolling about President Obama's use of the n-word, you wouldn't think things could get any stupider in post-Rachel America, but you would be wrong. On Tuesday night, Twitter ...read more
In further proof that 2016 will be very embarrassing for Republicans, rising conservative star Dr. Ben Carson is moving closer to a presidential bid. The pediatric neurosurgeon, who once called Obamacare the worst thing “since slavery” and looped in bestiality and pedophilia ...read more
As if liberals weren't already having enough fun with weird Christian beliefs this week, Faith and Freedom Coalition head and Casino Jack Abramoff henchman Ralph Reed decided to test his luck as a guest on Über-Atheist Bill Maher's Real Time. Reed was there to promote his new ...read more
On Tuesday night's All In with Chris Hayes, host and passionate climate change activistChris Hayescompared the burning of fossil fuel with the institution of slavery, and in mid-comparison, insisted to his audience that "I am not comparing slavery to the burning of fossil ...read more
Not only did Limbaugh complain that "not one conservative name was mentioned" during last night's Academy Awards telecast -- which took place in Hollywood, duh -- but he went on to say that the only reason "12 Years A Slave" won Best Picture was because it had the word "slave" ...read more
First Alec Baldwin now this: Martin Bashir is out at MSNBC. He's been off the air since November 22nd, but today he made it official that he's resigning: "After making an on-air apology, I asked for permission to take some additional time out around the Thanksgiving holiday. ...read more
There is a horrific story breaking out of the UK regarding three women being held in captivity for three decades. Reports the BBC: Police said they were not related to each other and the 30-year-old had spent her whole life in captivity. Officers are trying to establish whether ...read more
An article in the Guardian notes that "In 1833, after the abolition of slavery, the British parliament authorised a £20m payment to British plantation owners, the equivalent of £16.5bn today. This was deemed appropriate compensation for their loss of "property", meaning slaves. ...read more
We learned today that the Supreme Court has struck down a key part of the Civil Rights electoral law designed to protect minority voters. The decision, as described by Al Sharpton, effectively "canceled the dream” of Martin Luther King Jr. The Voting Rights act was, as ...read more
Facts can be a real encumbrance when your trying to enforce austerity on the impoverished masses. Adherents of the 'keep-cutting-until-it-grows philosophy' of economics suffered a blow last week as the story emerged that a famed pro-austerity publication by Harvard professors ...read more
President Obama was officially sworn in yesterday for his second term as chief executive and, this afternoon, he'll be ceremonially sworn in with all of the usual Capitol fanfare and speeches. While not as historically striking as his first inaugural, I couldn't help but to ...read more
I don't mean to step on Chez Pazienza's toes as the unofficial The Daily Banter Movie Guy, but I wanted to take some time with the new Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained; partly because racial issues and the American Civil War are two areas that I discuss quite frequently, ...read more
By Bob Cesca: Without much fanfare and without any prime time specials on television, this past Saturday marked the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, arguably one of the most important documents in American history and what I consider to be ...read more
By Mark Ames: A little over a year ago, while researching the Confederacy’s economy, I stumbled across this unnerving graph charting the value of America’s “stock of slaves” in the last decades before the Civil War. This graph tells the real story behind the South’s secession: ...read more
by Ben Cohen In a brilliant segment, Rachel Maddow essentially destroys whatever credibility Pat Buchanan had left, running through a litany of falsehoods the Right Wing commentator had uttered in a previous debate on her show. Buchanan had asserted that affirmative action was ...read more
