<t>In very many regards, the whole conversation about race is disconcerting. Do you suppose that flat earth claims could fade into irrelevance if people kept talking about the flat earth and just how flat it really is and how the flat earth shapes and defines every landscape? And how wherever you go...

<t>If America were half as racist as Coates insists it is....Obama never would have been elected. The 2016 election is the weirdest political event I have ever observed. I do not think it can be understood as a racist event or a sign of "white supremacy." It is for many reasons a sign of political d...

This piece is likely the best one in the book. It is a question (reparations) which should be taken seriously.

Mr. Marks, I do not agree that one election and one unfortunate act of hate motivated by racism somehow mean that racism can never become a thing of the past. The truth is: race does not form character any more than eye color or preference of ice cream flavor. Race should not matter at all. It shoul...

"Voyeuristic Busy-Butt Outrage Machine." That is new to me. We are in an unproductive place politically. We have been here more than a few times in our history. It will pass. However bad you think the other guy is...chances are he is not not half so bad and even better than that....however...

The suggestion that "white America" is somehow offended by images of a young boy touching President Obama's hair is laughable. It seems the only thing Coates believes that white Americans see is race - this is not true.

This is a compelling piece. The history of racism in America is very ugly and it is systemic.

Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" and Thomas Paine's "The Rights of Man" are excellent introductions to modern political polemics. They are interesting, readable and very compelling works that provide a view of the the Right and Left at their best.

In the piece he quotes Louis Farrakhan's description of X. I found this odd given the falling out between them and rather old rumors connecting Farrakhan to X's murder.

<t>The piece on the Civil War is excellent. I will make just two comments: I am by birth a New Englander and I have relocated to the south. I have sadly had many conversations with southern whites who think the Civil War was fought for something other than the end of slavery. It is a very sad lot of...