There’s Customizing a Message for Your Audience, and There’s Perpetuating Bias

So, Grant Cardone is in the news this week. You may know him as an author and a purveyor of financial and business advice. I’ve never absorbed any of his content. I’m leery of anyone who’s made a fortune telling other people how to make a fortune — especially when they target specific audiences, like Black people. …

White People, Don’t Be So Sensitive When We Point Out Racism

A woman I work with is moving from Utah. She of white, black and Native American ancestry, her Black husband, their two young children, even the nanny — they can't take it anymore. It's not a diverse place — understatement of the year, apparently — and too many of its populace can't keep their hands out …

Aunt Jemima Is Dead

I must say I don’t feel the least bit gruesome for the subtle satisfaction I feel in acknowledging — dare I say, low key celebrating? — someone’s demise. But I don’t. I suppose it helps that Aunt Jemima isn’t actually a person. She’s a construct. An antiquated, racist construct that has now officially been rebranded. Out with …

To Avoid Arrest and Death in Cases of Domestic Terrorism, It’s Best to Have Blue Eyes and White Skin

My closest friends know I have a running joke about how in my next life I want to be reincarnated as a white man. I’d like to be 6’3″, fine, with thick, jet black hair, milk pale skin and blue eyes. I mean blue! That spooky, piercing Chris Pine/Paul Newman blue. The rest of me …

2021, Cool.

I wanted to be terribly hopeful and happy and excited about 2021, but I confess: I’m more like, meh. Honestly, it feels like just another day, which was, for me, par for the course for 2020. One day ran into the next, and before I knew it, my birthday passed. Then it was fall, and …

Sourcing the Truth in Media Is a Subjective Practice

Journalism can no longer make any claims to objectivity for one very important reason: The viewing and reading public is now an active part of the dialogue. Allow me to explain. Before the Internet and technology enabled us to spread information globally at a click — and comment on that information — newspapers, magazines, TV …