Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Leonard Pitts Jr. I guess I touched a nerve. That much seems apparent from the dozens of responses to my recent column about a hospital in Abington, Pa., where a white man asked that no black doctors or nurses be allowed to assist in the delivery of his child. The hospital agreed, a decision I lambasted. Which has produced the aforementioned dozens of critical e-mails. The tone varies from spittle-spewing bigotry to sweet reason, but they all make the same point: that...
Leanard Pitts Jr. It was over before we could do anything. This is maybe 25 years ago. A bunch of us had left work and gone to Westwood, the shopping district in west L.A., for dinner and a movie. We were walking down the street laughing and talking, most of us black, one or two of us white, when this car roared by and some white guy yelled out, “Go home, niggers!” He was gone before we could even register the insult. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that incident was t...
Leonard Pitts Jr. Neither of our female companions would agree to sleep with Eric. So I said I would. He laid down on his side of the bed, I laid down on mine and turned off the lights. After a few moments, my breathing slowed and I started to drift, floating in that weightless place between not yet sleep and no longer fully awake. I was thinking happy thoughts. And then Eric kicked me in my kidneys. It was a hard shot, heel first, and my eyes flew open. I muttered something...
Maybe they should have beaten the crap out of Denzel Washington. I say that thinking of the time an Oprah Winfrey fan said she never fully appreciated the tragedy of slavery until she saw a picture of her idol dressed as human chattel, her body scarred by the whip. It struck her that at another time, Oprah — EVEN OPRAH — could have been a slave. And finally, she understood. So maybe if Denzel had led police on a high-speed chase, staggered around drunkenly and been beaten lik...
Thursday marked two years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Two years since 19 terrorists commandeered four passenger jets and used them as weapons against innocent men, women and children. The hijackers, members of the al-Qaida terrorist organization, used box cutters to gain control of the aircraft and then used their skills learned at American flight schools to fly planes into the World Trade Center buildings in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A f...
Leonard Pitts Jr. Dear Osama, How have you been? How are the wives and kids? I’m just writing to let you know that I still think of you often. Mostly when I take off my shoes. That’s standard operating procedure over here at airports now, Osama. Can I call you Sammy? Anyway, that’s just a routine part of life nowadays. You have to remove your footwear to go through the metal detectors. Nobody’s too happy about it except, I suspect, the people who make and sell socks. It’s be...
Let me tell you where I come from. Born in Southern California, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Both parents from Mississippi, but I’m not referring to that, either. I mean before that. Before Mr. James Crow laid down his law. Before raiders and slave traders dropped anchor in West Africa. I’m talking about where my family began. Let me tell you where I come from. If you had asked me before, maybe I’d have done like Dr. Rick Kittles, co-director of Molecular Genetics...
New York City school administrators begin filtering back to work next week. Students will return next month. And Harvey Milk High will become reality. That’s Harvey Milk as in the openly gay San Francisco politician who was famously murdered in 1978. Milk High, you see, is the nation’s first public school for gay students. The school, which is actually an expansion of a program started two decades ago by a gay rights group, will cost $3.2 million. It is supposed to pro...
So, how much do you need? Would a million do it for you? Could you get by on 10? A hundred? How about $400 million in cash? It is, of course, the all-American daydream. We’ve all had it, all stood in the shower or driven down the highway mentally spending some obscene pile of money that falls from the sky. Me, I figure I’d tithe 10 percent, invest 10 percent, then go shopping for a modest little Caribbean island with a helipad. Or not. The dream changes a little every tim...
Have you heard the news? There’s good rockin’ tonight. We’re talking girls in poodle skirts and guys with DA’s. Moondoggy’s got his old man’s Buick, so maybe later we can cruise down to the soda shop for a burger and a malted. Question authority? We don’t do that anymore, Daddy-O. Haven’t you heard? The ’60s have been repealed. The ’50s are back. Or at least, that seemed to be the consensus of a group of Florida newspaper editors at a recent convention near Jacksonville....
This is for Larry, who wants to know what to call folks like me. Larry’s a reader in San Jose who grew up back when “Negroes” was the proper term. In the late ’60s, when “black” came into vogue, Larry used that. Now, he says, some black people prefer to be called “African-American.” Which is fine by him, except that he knows some black folks despise the term. Larry says he supports a people’s right to be defined as they choose. He just wants to do the right thing. Unfortunat...
