I can see criticizing, complaining, protesting - anything but choosing not to vote. Too many people died for us not to vote.

I can see criticizing, complaining, protesting - anything but choosing not to vote. Too many people died for us not to vote.

I can see Obama trying to be the president who suggests solutions for everyone who has experienced economic hardship.

Home is the place where there is somebody who does not wish you any pain.

As for the not-black black president issue - white people can imagine blacks worse off than them, no problem. And now they can imagine blacks better off, no problem. But they still can't imagine black people who are just like them. That's the real problem. That's racism. Not being able to believe that those others are actually just like you.

In her excellent, entirely readable Richard Wright, Hazel Rowley accomplishes what [previous biographer] Michel Fabre would have liked to do with once-guarded letters, aging witnesses, previously unidentified girlfriends. . . . Mostly, Rowley concentrates on telling Wright's very powerful story.

There's a class divide in black America that doesn't seem to trouble black Americans so much, but whites use it and exploit it. The progress of a few is allowed to stand for the progress of everyone. We can't afford that kind of disaffection at the moment.