Minorities

Just when I thought this columnist gig wouldn't pay off, I got a call from Kenny Yee, L.A.'s "Noodle King." Kenny is the president of Wing Hing Noodles, a local, family-owned firm, as well as the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles. He called to ask me to be a judge at this year's Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Pageant. Who was I to turn him down?

The French political response to the continuing riots has focused most on the need for more multicultural "understanding" of, and public spending on, the disenchanted mass in the country's grim banlieues (suburbs). What has been largely ignored has been the role of France's economic system in contributing to the current crisis. State-directed capitalism may seem ideal for such American admirers such as Jeremy Rifkin, author of The European Dream, and others on the left. Yet it is precisely this highly… more

Ten years ago shoe-leather urbanologists found their primary source material in the late-night crack market. Today they're better off rising early and divesting themselves of $1.10 in pocket change to ride the U8 bus, a leading economic indicator of the American inner city. The U8, which serves the easternmost corner of Washington, D.C., is what's known in public-transport parlance as a circuit bus. Its African-American riders are among the most isolated of the urban poor: those who not only can't… more

Sometimes, it's easier to see the full implications of some of our race-related social problems by looking at them not directly but with our peripheral vision. Sometimes … more

For all their scoffing at former president Clinton's "I feel your pain" oversentimentality, Republicans seem to have fallen prey to the same affliction. One can't help wondering, though, about… more

Selected reviews of An American Story are featured below:

Sunday, October 8, 2000 It is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-self-servingly about race as Debra J. Dickerson does in "An American Story," her memoir of her first 35 years, in which she lurches from ghetto misfit and two-time dropout to Air Force trainee, Pentagon junior officer and Harvard Law School graduate. The book traces her journey across borders… more

Let's be honest. If Al Gore's selection of a Jew as his running mate costs him votes, it's not going to be with Southern rednecks, who weren't going to vote for him anyway--or with evangelicals, … more

Maryland police, claiming that Liberian college student Nelson Walker wasn't wearing a seat belt, dismantled his car searching for drugs; hours later, having found none, they handed him a… more

One day the Democratic Party may wake up and wonder where all the black people have gone. While blacks over 50, especially older black women, remain solidly Democratic, the young are increasingly alienated from politics in general -- and from the Democratic Party in particular.

Now that high-profile black Republicans like… more