Chat live with Leonard Pitts Jr. from 1-2 p.m. Wednesdays, or submit questions ahead of time.
Leonard Pitts Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2004. He is the author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood. His column runs every Sunday and Wednesday.
On Sept. 11, 2001, he wrote a column on the terrorist attacks that received a huge response from readers who deluged him with more than 26,000 e-mails. It was posted on the Internet, chain-letter style. Read the column and others on the topic of September 11.
You can also read Pitts' series, What Works?, a series of columns about programs anywhere in the country that show results in improving the lives of black children.
Email Leonard at lpitts@MiamiHerald.com or visit his website at www.leonardpittsjr.com
At one level, it sounds like a very bad joke. In September, a safe-haven law took effect in the state of Nebraska allowing parents to leave their children at hospitals without fear of prosecution. This, as a means of saving the lives of unwanted newborns who would otherwise be left in garbage heaps and motel rooms or simply murdered outright. Nebraska was the last state in the union to pass such a law and unlike the other 49 states, it did not limit the ages of children that could be legally abandoned...
I was crammed into a middle seat. The guy in front was practically in my lap, and I had my arms drawn in tightly as I pecked furiously on the keyboard. God glanced over. ''What are you working on?'' He asked.
We should be ashamed of how poorly we have treated President George W. Bush. That, believe it or not, is the thesis of a bizarre opinion published the day after the election in The Wall Street Journal by one Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, described as an investigative reporter, a lawyer and a former intern for, of all people, John Kerry. It's one of two rather eye-opening Journal pieces, actually; the second, following just days later, was by a former presidential aide named Jim Towey. Under the headline...
They'll be back. Don't think for a minute that they won't. These things run in cycles, and death in politics is about as permanent as death in Marvel Comics, which is to say, not very.
So it seems there's this new couple coming to town (the husband just got a job with the government). Now they are scouting schools for their children, and people are wondering whether they're going to go public or private.
Sometimes, progress carries an asterisk. That's as good a summary as any of a sad irony from last week's historic election. You will recall one of the major storylines of that day was the fact that, in helping make Barack Obama the nation's first black president, African Americans struck a blow against a history that has taught us all too well how it feels to be demeaned and denied. Unfortunately, while they were striking that blow, some black folks chose to demean and deny someone else.
Maybe I should revise my estimate. Lately, many people have asked me about the fate of the American newspaper in an era when circulation, advertising and staff size are all sharply down. I've told them what editors have told me: The next 18 to 24 months may well see the first major U.S. city without a daily paper.
''For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.'' -- Michelle Obama, Feb. 18, 2008
The killers would have worn top hats. Having already murdered 102 African Americans, 14 by beheading, they would have driven at top speed toward Barack Obama, leaning from the windows of their vehicle, dressed in top hats and white tuxedoes, firing guns.
It smelled worse than rotting garbage in triple digit heat, but I'm not surprised some folks swallowed it anyway. Meaning the story that was a mini-sensation for about 15 minutes last week: the McCain campaign worker supposedly mugged by a black man in Pittsburgh.
This is a rewrite. In the column originally prepared for this space, I said that Troy Davis was scheduled to die Monday -- to be killed, actually, by an executioner for the state of George.
Excuse me while I say a few words on behalf of us Fake Americans. Not that I really think of myself as such. I mean, here in Fake America, life proceeds much as it does in Real America. We are raising our kids and paying our taxes, trying to keep up with the dishes in the sink, going to the movies now and then. In fact, if you didn't know better, you'd never realize our America was Fake.
Meanwhile, back at the War on Terror . . . You remember the War on Terror, don't you? It was in all the papers. Back before presidential politics sucked the air from the room and your 401(k) shrank till it was worth maybe dinner and a movie, it was considered quite the important news story. Abu Ghraib? Extraordinary renditions? Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here? Surely you recall.
My 401(k) is down $21,000 since the end of September. And John McCain thinks I should be worried about William Ayers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are strange days. And it's difficult not to empathize with the Arizona senator, who has spent these last weeks flailing like a man trying to hit a fastball in the dark.
There is an ugliness here. It is disguised as decency, disguised as politics, but it is only ugliness, mean and raw and given license by the desperation of a man who used to be honorable and a woman who said she was just like us.
Dear Chris Rock: I apologize in advance for the language that will shortly follow. And yes, there is a certain irony there, given that you are one of the most profane men on the planet.
The first time, Troy Davis came within 24 hours of death. The second time, he came within two. Last year, it was a Georgia clemency board that stepped in to block his execution. Last month, it was the Supreme Court. Davis, the 39-year-old convicted killer of Mark MacPhail, a Savannah, Ga., police officer, was granted a stay to allow the court to consider whether to hear his appeal for a new trial. A decision is expected on Monday.
In a moment, I will say something you've probably never read in an opinion column. Last week, you see, I wrote about Sarah Palin's attempt to ban books when she was a small town mayor. In the process, I noted that ''we all have questions'' for Palin. Among them: ``Does she really take the parable of Adam and Eve as literal truth?''
Memo to the next president: There's an old fable I'm sure you know. It's usually credited to Aesop, and the version I found online at storyarts.org, goes like this:
black \'blak\ adjective 1: of the color black; 2: of or relating to the African-American people; 3: dirty, soiled; 4: thoroughly sinister or evil;
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