Racial Equality

How Small and Ugly Can We Get?

I received this email from a colleague with whom I team-teach classes from time to time. It speaks for itself. “One of my IUPUI journalism students was enjoying coffee at a Greenwood, Indiana Starbucks while chatting with his friend José. They were speaking Spanish. A woman interrupted them saying, “You need to start speaking ‘American’ [...]

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Follow the Money

In today’s political environment, a smart politician quickly learns that using the right language is more important than doing the right thing. In most cases, the electorate won’t know the difference, because the real business of government is done through that most boring, least-understood, least reported-on mechanism—the budget. If we really want to know what [...]

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Rules in Black and White

It was a warm and sunny spring day, and the park was filled with families and children playing. At the eastern perimeter of the park, on a low fence constructed of railroad ties, three young African-American boys sat talking quietly. An IPD patrol car pulled up directly in front of them; the officers got out [...]

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Rules in Black and White #2

One of the most basic responsibilities of local government is the supervision of traffic. We depend upon municipal officials to engineer our streets and highways, erect and maintain traffic signals, and to promulgate rules that foster safety on the streets…

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Saddened But Not Surprised

Within a recent, two-day period, Indianapolis media reported on two separate, ugly incidents. In Greenwood, racist flyers were distributed on cars parked at the Greenwood Park Mall; in Carmel, anti-Semitic tracts were thrown on driveways in selected neighborhoods.

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