Sadly, in America, there’s no expiration on irrationality and xenophobia; no vaccine against the deeply held anti-intellectual tradition that believes its ignorance is just as valid as truth and knowledge.
Azzi: To get beyond racism, you must account for race
Robert Azzi
From the Upper Valley to the Lakes Region and Seacoast - from New Hampshire’s largest newspaper to the State House - arguments over HB544, “… AN ACT relative to the propagation of divisive concepts … ” are roiling the state’s cultural and political waters.
Simply stated, HB544 is an attempt to protect white institutional privilege and supremacist narratives about America’s origins, while inhibiting free speech and difficult discussions about American values and interests.
An attempt to delegitimize Critical Race Theory (CRT), which examines and contextualizes social and cultural issues related to race, justice, law, and political power.
Letter: Recent letters to the editor
Published: 4/1/2021 8:58:50 AM
The March 27 Letters to the Editor set a low-water mark with the notable exception of Malia Ebel’s well-reasoned inquiry into the proposed Penacook Market Basket. The lowest-hanging fruit was clearly Mr. Mason’s two-sentence offering. One can only wonder to whom he refers. Clearly not President Biden, who after a decades long Senate career and two terms as Vice President, can’t possibly be “the unknown individual.” Mr. Bloomquist’s letter is fraught with just enough facts to frighten, but not enough context to enlighten. The example of ICE and CBP personnel being “gagged” will suffice. Is it unreasonable for an administration less than three months in to implement its policies without background noise from disgruntled employees? And who doubts that it will be the disgruntled ones that Fox News and other Trump loyalist media will seek out?
Robert Azzi: I was once you: Today, I’m the Other
Published: 3/7/2021 11:00:15 AM
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Confederate flag flown from the back of a pickup truck. The last time it happened I managed to drive up alongside the F-150 – we were on a multi-lane state highway – long enough to see the driver had a young boy with him. I’m assuming it was his son.
His presence moved me more than the flag offended me – that the boy was learning such hate from his father appeared to be nearly intolerable abuse.
A generational abuse that persists to this day in far too many spaces – public and private – abuse perpetrated by Americans who feel that, as Isabel Wilkerson wrote in
Robert Azzi: Cancel culture: In the eye of the beholder
Published: 2/28/2021 6:20:06 AM
“It is certain, in any case,” James Baldwin said, “that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
Today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 100 years after Wilmington and Tulsa, more than 50 years after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, more than six years after Ferguson, after Sandra Bland, five years after Mother Emanuel and after Philando Castile, three years after Charlottesville, one year after Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, months after communities across America exploded in protest – and in some cases rage – America continues to be roiled by ignorance, by divisive conflict and conversation about privilege, power, and marginalization.