Appearing on “Larry King Live” in 1995, Jesse Helms, then the senior senator from North Carolina, fielded a call from an unusual admirer. Helms deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, the caller gushed, “for everything you’ve done to help keep down the niggers.” Given the rank ugliness of the sentiment — the guest host, Robert Novak, called it, with considerable understatement, “politically incorrect” — Helms could only pause before responding. But the hesitation couldn’t suppress his gut instincts. “Whoops, well, thank you, I think,” [Helms] said. With prodding from Novak, he added that he’d been spanked as a child for using the N-word and noted (with a delicious hint of uncertainty), “I don’t think I’ve used it since.” As for the caller’s main point — the virtue of keeping down blacks — it passed without comment. (New York Times)

Helms passed away on July 4 at age 86. Was he a righteous warrior or a malignant wizard?

A giant among statesmen, or the last great unabashedly white racist politician? Who was Jesse Helms, anyway?

I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you. - Hillary Clinton, June 5, 2008

As she plans to give her support to Barack Obama today, I want to offer a few words of (my own brand of) wisdom to all those Obama supporters who have thought that Clinton should have gotten out of the race long ago...

As an urban African American almost-college-educated single mother, under age thirty, I don't fit snugly in the Hillary Clinton demographic, according to the polls.

I'm betwixt and between the racism, sexism and ageism divides. While I don't like any "ism" much, I've been more offended by the sexist remarks I've heard about Clinton than I have been by the alleged racist remarks about Obama. Why? I've heard far more sexist talk than I have racist talk. I hear it on the news and out of the mouths of all kinds of people - children, men, white, black, brown and, yes, women too. The sexist remarks, sexist jokes and sexist hate speech seem to go largely unnoticed and unremarked by those around me - as if a large percentage of our society doesn't even recognize or acknowledge sexism as real. People are not sensitized to the damage of sexist language and attitudes, like they seem to be about racism. Ignoring sexism doesn't take the sting out of its effects.

It seems to me that our society is far more sexist than it is racist. It's no surprise to me that polls say that more Americans are amenable to having a generic African American male president - and fewer would vote for a generic Caucasian female president.

Even so, this isn't why I'm a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I support Clinton because Obama is not adequately addressing my concerns about health care.

I've been largely silent in the last few months about the prejudices and hate speech that I have seen poisoning my Democratic party.

Let me begin by saying I am black. In fact, let's get a few things straight about just how black I am. I am blue black in certain light. Most days, I'm a semi-sweet chocolate. My hair gets nappy in the rain. My skin gets ashy on dry days. My lips are full. My rear end is generously sized - and, yes, I do love to dance. I love everything about my African American culture. I'm not half-white. I'm all black and (thank you, Maya Angelou) I'm also a phenomenal woman.

Here's the most important thing you need to know about this race: it's neck-and-neck. But now we're hearing people -- elected officials, party members, and Obama campaign surrogates -- call for Hillary to pull out. Only 130 delegates separate Hillary from Senator Obama. The difference in popular vote is less than 1 percent, and millions of voters have yet to make their voices heard. This election should be about their choice. (Bill Clinton, March 29, 2008)

They wanted to attend a meeting that would impact their very futures in the city that they love.

This past Thursday, you may have noticed in the national news that thousands of lifelong New Orleans residents were being treated to pepper spray, mace, and batons as a way to keep them from attending that meeting in City Hall.

It's been two years since many of these folks survived the horrors at the New Orleans Convention Center and the Super Dome. In the months since, their lives have gone from horrifying to hopeless to abject tragedy. Thursday in New Orleans was an ugly and heartbreaking scene.

Why were these folks downtown? What brought them to this?

Let's elect a president we can be proud of next year. Meanwhile, I couldn't resist sharing this video with ya'll...

Last week, on September 27th, Tavis Smiley hosted the second All-American Presidential Forum at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Out of the ten Republican candidates invited - guess who didn't show up? The top four front runners didn't show - McCain, Giuliani, Romney, and Thompson! Bad manners. Inexcusable and shortsighted. Hmmmm.

Or were these boys scared? Couldn't Rudy, John, Mitt and Fred muster up the courage to actually show up in a room with a bunch of black and brown people? Seems rather odd to me since Americans of color actually make up 33% of our country's population.

One in every three of us is brown, black or tan. The nation's minority population reached 100.7 million last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Latinos make up the largest minority group, followed by African-Americans, then Asian-Americans. So, tell me, what country do those top dog Republican boys think they're living in, anyway?

It's been two years but my pain has not abated. My eyes still well up with tears. I remember the grandmothers in wheelchairs, the young mothers without diapers, and the children feeling terror, a bone-chilling terror, for the first time. As these good and valuable people endured such inhuman pain, I lost my own innocence.

My fists ball up in rage when I think of all our sisters and brothers, of all colors, of all ages, who sat motionless, powerless, in despair. Without any food and water, or sanitation, for five desolate days in that Convention Center in New Orleans, the true disaster was not the hurricane and not even the man-made broken levies. The real disaster was our failure to help these Americans in their greatest time of need.

How alone and scared they felt when we, their fellow citizens, were unable to demand that our government air-drop food and water to them. Five days is a very long time to live like that, knowing in your gut that there are many in your nation that had ceased to care whether you live or whether you die. But, why? That's the question that crushes hearts.

Sometimes when we keep hearing things said a certain way, over and over again - somehow certain untruths or unwanted logic find homes in our brains and influence our perspective. Even if we had attempted to reject the ideas outright the first time we heard them. You know what I mean?

This week, I'm taking a look at a few of those. I am appalled at how much I've observed around me without reacting effectively. It is as if I've suffered from reaction fatigue - that is, the sheer number of outrages have worn me out.