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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
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Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
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Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Jan. 26, 2009
/ 1 Shevat 5769
Is black the new black?
By
Clarence Page
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Some compliments are hard to take.
Take, for example, Larry King's announcement a day after President Barack Obama's inauguration that it is now "in" to be black.
In fact, the ageless CNN talk show host announced during a conversation with journalist Bob Woodward and fellow talk show host Tavis Smiley on "Larry King Live" that his 8-year-old son Cannon "now says that he would like to be black.
Woodward and Smiley burst into what sounded to me like a slightly cautious laughter. "There's a lot of advantages to being black," King continued, beaming with fatherly pride. "Black is in. Is this a turning of the tide?"
Not to me. As a black parent, I've lived through this movie, only in reverse racial roles. When our son was four, he came home from his pre-school one day to announce that he wanted to be a "white policeman" when he grew up.
His mother and I tried not to sound shocked, despite our imagined horrors of a budding racial identity crisis damaging our son's sense of self. Besides, if you react to something shocking that your kid says, they will only say it again.
Instead I quietly reached for a how-to manual by psychiatrists James P. Comer of Yale and Alvin Poussaint of Harvard on the raising of black children. The book just happened to include a response to a black parent whose four-year-old wanted to be white.
The good doctors' remedy? "Relax," they said.
It turns out that it is quite normal for children of all races to become aware of color differences at age four, but they don't attach any value to it. It is left to us, their elders to teach them to love, hate or give everyone a fair chance to prove themselves.
And the reverse also was true, Comer and Poussaint pointed out: It is not unusual for white kids to want to be black, if their personal heroes happen to be black.
Indeed at that time 15 years ago, my son's best friend was a 5-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid in our neighborhood who was firmly convinced, as his dad put it, that "he is Michael Jordan."
For Larry, who among us older dads is challenging several records for late parenting, cross-racial tourism by kids appears to be a new experience. That would explain his amazement and his apparent ignorance of a pesky unwritten rule in today's political correctness: Let no racial praise go unpunished.
It was King's casual assertion that there's "a lot of advantages" to being black that stirred the biggest uproar of Internet chatter. A writer to the Huffington Post fumed, "(A)s soon as sonny boy gets passed over for jobs, opportunities, promotions, loans snubbed, driven by, under-estimated, charged more, ignored by doctors, success looked at with surprise and asked constantly if he plays basketball he'll go right back to spending his white daddy's money."
Ah, yes, as much as the world welcomes America's first president of known African descent, it is more than a little early to declare blackness to be an advantage. In fact, if he screws up, I suspect that we won't see another black president for another hundred years.
For now, I am not shocked that King's kid would think being black might give him some sort of advantage. It is a mark of our progress as Americans that today's millennial-generation kids can grow up with images of black success models like Obama as easily as I grew up with Superman and Wonder Woman.
Ironically, the more success we black Americans show in this country, the harder it becomes for us to persuade anyone that being black is such a terrible handicap. To paraphrase an old song, nobody knows the troubles they have not seen.
By now you may have noticed, dear reader, that it's hard to joke about race these days, even when the humor obviously is good-natured and free of malice. Joe Biden could tell you that. Back when the master of foot-in-mouth surprises was still a Democratic senator from Delaware, he famously derailed his own presidential campaign momentum with a well-meaning but racially naive compliment of Obama as "clean" and "articulate." What sounded like praise to Biden sounded like condescension to quite a few black Americans.
Obama didn't hold it against Biden, as evidenced by his later choice of a running mate. Yet the episode left an important lesson: We can't move into a truly post-racial future without a vocabulary that can help us to talk more frankly about our racially troubled past.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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