This is arguably the most problematic, violable and dangerous time in the country’s history

America has only made one unique cultural contribution to the world, that’s jazz. Jazz is to America what democracy is to Greece. 

There’s a large bureaucracy that actually runs the city of St. Louis, the real job of the mayor is to decide where the city needs to go and determine the best way to get there, adjusting the course as required by circumstances.

As I watched the machinations of Donald Trump after losing, I thought about doing a column considering whether there are any limits of white privilege?

As we approach the eve of the MLK Birthday holiday these words from “A Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens’ epic novel about the French Revolution came to mind: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … it was a season of light, it was a season of darkness.”

One of the things that happens when you write an opinion column is when you get to the end of the year you write something about what were the most important  events of that year, muse about what they meant and what they may mean for the new year. But I believe also when you’re writing in th…

You never get the right answers when you ask the wrong questions, and you always ask the wrong questions when you don’t understand the problem.

The title of former President Barack Obama’s memoir is “Promised Land,” and in a recent Atlantic Magazine he explained his reason for the title was he was not willing to give up on the American project. Despite his brilliance, his choice of the title and the Atlantic quote represents an exam…

Art philosopher Arthur Danto observed, “We erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget.” Art serves many purposes, but perhaps its most important is the memorializing that which must always be remembered.

White America, history has its eyes on you

On the last night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Billy Porter reprised a song from the 1960s, “For What It’s Worth.” The song is better known by its iconic lyric, which seems to be as relevant at this moment as it was for the moment when it was recorded by Buffalo Springfield in…

I want to commend former state representative Joshua Peters for his commentary “Black politics in a time of revolution” in The St Louis American. Peters’ cogent insight into the emergence of new Black political leadership that will change the character of Black politics as an effect of the B…

Max Ehrmann reminds us in “Desiderata” (1927) that, whether or not it is clear to us, the universe is unfolding as it should. That thought came to mind when I saw that Joe Biden had selected U.S. Senator Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States. I di…

“This time feels different” might be the most repeated phase in America at this moment, and that’s because it’s true. This time does feel different.

America is obviously having a Man in the Mirror moment on the issue of race as the result of the police murder of George Floyd. In the ensuing three weeks we have seen multiethnic, multiracial mass protests against the system of American policing. These protests have not only touched every c…

When dealing with the political establishment, always remember that whatever they say it is, it ain’t that. This has never been truer than when discussing policing in America.

Now that Joe Biden is the official unofficial Democratic nominee, all the other candidates have dropped out and endorsed him, and former President Barack Obama’s endorsement is seen as his official unofficial coronation, the question is: now what? 

In the iconic movie Casablanca, Captain Renault (Claude Raines) is forced by the Nazis to close down Rick’s Café (really a casino, where he’s been gambling). Rick (Humphrey Bogart) asks why he’s being shut down. Renault’s ironic response, as the dealer hands him his winnings, is now a classi…

How did this happen? How did we come to be in this place? Why are we so unprepared to deal with this?

I want to you to ask yourself a question. Take your favorite African-American pundits on your preferred cable news outlet and ask yourself when you’ve ever heard them discuss or analyze how any policy proposals by a Democratic candidate for president specifically relate to the condition of t…

I cast my first presidential vote in 1972, and I’ve never not voted. I’ve never consider voting for a Republican as a matter of principle: we believe completely different things about the role and purpose of government in civil society. It doesn’t mean we can’t coexist, as long as I have eno…

I began my governmental career in March 1977 when then St. Louis Mayor John Poelker appointed me to the Community Development Agency Commission. I was 28 years old. My governmental service officially ended January 27, 2020 when Missouri Governor Mike Parson appointed Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge …

What happens in the world has as much impact on African Americans as everyone else, yet there has always been an African-American school of thought that says foreign affairs is white folks’ business and we put our agenda at risk when we engage on that issue. Nothing could be more wrong.

For the last several months the columns I’ve written have had something to with the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary, and I’d now like to bring some closure to at least this part of that process. I referred to this part of process like preseason NFL football: it has nothing to do with wh…

I don’t believe history literally repeats itself, but humans regularly find themselves in circumstances that are similar to circumstances of the past. And since humans are slow to evolve and learn, they find themselves regularly surprised when confronting similar circumstances and regularly …

“These are times that try men’s souls.”

In 1849 U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun gave a speech in the United States Senate where he said the following: “With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black, and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are res…

In the previous column I said a political philosophy is analogous to a religious faith and the advantage that the rich, privileged and powerful have is they practice politics the way average people practice their religion, as a matter of faith. I want to make a correction. Faith and religion…

If you use mass popular media as your primary source of information to make decisions then you’re severely limited in understanding what a presidential election is all about is. Mainstream media treat presidential politics like a high school race for student council president – basically, a …

“Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.”

Who is the premiere national politician of the post-Reagan era? For me, there is only one candidate. I’m talking about the Mother of Dragons, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the leader of the House Democratic Caucus, the gentlewoman from California, U.S. Rep. Nancy Patricia…

If you’re black in America, you’re always faced with the same two political choices every four years: bad and worse. Approaching 2020, there’s no real discussion about the worse choice, Trump and his neo-fascist Republican Party. My advice to people of color and anti-racist white Americans f…

If you’re black in America, you’re always faced with the same two political choices every four years: bad and worse. Approaching 2020, there’s no real discussion about the worse choice, Trump and his neo-fascist Republican Party. My advice to people of color and anti-racist white Americans f…

If the United States was the country we pretend it to be, there would be no angst over the 2020 Presidential Election, because if the United States was that country, Donald Trump wouldn’t be president, because as the cliché goes, “we’re better than that.” The reality is Donald Trump is the p…

In “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Oscar-nominated documentary by filmmaker Raoul Peck about the work of the late James Baldwin, Baldwin makes the this observation: “What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place, beca…

Reparation is making amends for a wrong one has done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. It’s this notion of financial compensation for the descendants of enslaved people of African descent that is usually the focus of the reparations debate.

In the epigraph to “The Godfather,” Mario Puzo quotes the 19th century French novelist Honore’ de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” There has never been a more accurate observation about the source of America’s collective wealth.

I made myself a promise not to follow or comment on the Democratic presidential campaign until October or November, primarily because it a pointless exercise that will have nothing to do with who will win the Democratic nomination and whether or not that person can successfully defeat Donald…

As Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention he was approached by  a woman who asked, “What have you given us, a monarchy or a republic? Franklin replied, ”A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

What drew St. Louis’ civic leadership and professional class to Better Together like moths to a flame? It’s their belief that the single biggest impediment to St. Louis’ ability to grow and prosper is its fragmented local government structure. The way St. Louis city and county are politicall…

In 1992 David Halberstam wrote a new introduction for the 20th anniversary edition of “The Best and the Brightest.” He wrote that his favorite passage of the book was a conversation between Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn.

The African-American response to Better Together’s proposal to merge St. Louis city and county

In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, God asks a profound compound question: “Who shall I send, who will go for us?”

The Latin phrase “Time Danasos et dona fermented” – which means “I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts” – has become the commonly used phrase “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” The phrase, from the Roman poet Virgil’s retelling of the Trojan War, refers to how the Greeks tricked the Tro…

February is Black History Month, and February 6 would have been the 89th birthday of Arthur “Chink” Washington. Chink’s active political career spanned 60 years and touched multiple generations of St. Louis and Missouri political actors, black and white.

This moment of inflection in America is not about political ideology or political competence, it’s about the lack of moral competence, whether you’re talking about the national political scene or the political condition of St. Louis.

Wesley Bell’s first three weeks as St. Louis County prosecuting attorney have been exceptional. He has taken command of the office and without apology and led with important initiatives that were pillars of his campaign and foundational to criminal justice reform. He has marked his territory…

The only thing more ridiculous than 17 Republicans running for president in 2016 will be the 20 -plus Democrats running for president in 2020. There will never be that many people in either party – or in both parties, taken together – at any time who ought to be seriously considered for the …