The post-mortem here in Florida for our own Amendment loss points out that the groups fighting the Amendment didn't do very well in terms of outreach to the black community. Where we did, we changed minds, which tells me we should have done more of it. We have no one but ourselves to blame for losing.
And it's really disturbing to me that there's all this finger-pointing going on over this. Don't make excuses and don't look for someone to blame--we lost, and we won't win unless we figure out what we can do better for the next time around.
In the meantime, here's hoping the ACLU wins their lawsuit in California and that the Supreme Court eventually overturns DOMA so all this states' rights crap disappears like it ought to.
I actually don't think more gay people voting for McCain had much, if anything, to do with race. It's just as probable that on most issues, gay people vary as much as other people: there are gay economic conservatives and gay foreign policy hawks. The fact that McCain wasn't pushing for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage - that, in fact, his and Obama's positions were virtually identical, in that both support civil unions and neither support same-sex marriage - would have reduced the impact of the issue and influenced more people to vote based on their views on other matters.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
The poll underneath is hilariouser.
The post-mortem here in Florida for our own Amendment loss points out that the groups fighting the Amendment didn't do very well in terms of outreach to the black community. Where we did, we changed minds, which tells me we should have done more of it. We have no one but ourselves to blame for losing.
And it's really disturbing to me that there's all this finger-pointing going on over this. Don't make excuses and don't look for someone to blame--we lost, and we won't win unless we figure out what we can do better for the next time around.
In the meantime, here's hoping the ACLU wins their lawsuit in California and that the Supreme Court eventually overturns DOMA so all this states' rights crap disappears like it ought to.
I actually don't think more gay people voting for McCain had much, if anything, to do with race. It's just as probable that on most issues, gay people vary as much as other people: there are gay economic conservatives and gay foreign policy hawks. The fact that McCain wasn't pushing for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage - that, in fact, his and Obama's positions were virtually identical, in that both support civil unions and neither support same-sex marriage - would have reduced the impact of the issue and influenced more people to vote based on their views on other matters.