The angry mob of white southerners that surrounded Robert Williams and his entourage in June of 1961 met a familiar sight with a deeply disturbing variation. The mob, the police and even the federal government in its absence were following the Jim Crow playbook to the letter, but on this particular day things were not going as planned, so much so that an old man in the crowd wept bitterly. “God damn, God damn!”, the old man protested through tears, “What is this country coming to that the niggers have got guns! The niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!” The old man was partially right. Robert Williams and his fellow activists were armed, trained and refused to hand their weapons over to the police without a fight: the police couldn’t stop Robert Williams. But then neither could the Klan or the FBI or the CIA. As…

The trial of George Zimmerman began a few weeks ago with the prosecution resting its case last Friday. Like all high profile/high stakes trials, moments and    memes have emerged, but what stands out most for me is the man – George Zimmerman. There he sits: sad eyes, hangdog expression, portly and unassuming. The last person you would expect to see charged with 2nd degree murder and a far cry from the intense, lupine, almost predatory man we saw a little over a year ago. Today he looks like a man swept along by the tide of history rather than his own actions and I cannot help but be reminded of a similar figure from my childhood. Another pudgy, nonthreatening, and baby-faced man charged with heinous crimes: Wayne Bertram Williams. Between 1979 and 1981, 29 children and young adults were abducted and murdered in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. The bodies…

One of my favorite characters on “The Boondocks” is Uncle Ruckus, a hard-working, self-hating, foul-mouthed, delusional black man whose hostility to black people is only matched by his faith in the innate wisdom and goodness of white people. Uncle Ruckus views his blackness as a sort of mark of Cain that he must endure until he can move on to the next life and be greeted at the pearly gates by God’s personal representative – Ronald Reagan, who as a reward for Ruckus’ undying fidelity, will redeem him. He will remove Ruckus’ cursed sin of blackness and make Ruckus a white man. Ruckus is not unique in his views of Reagan. In fact, conservatives cannot seem to agree on much these days, but on the near divinity of Ronald Reagan they seem to be in almost complete accord. Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal and lately Marco Rubio…