Opinion

Now archived in libraries and stored as memorabilia of a time past, the Green Book has passed into history, but structural racism has not. A persistent, truth-seeking set of questions will manifest the evidence of its existence today time and time again.

Mayor Marty Walsh’s appointment of William Gross as Boston’s police commissioner was well received by those residents who are eager for racial diversity in the city administration. However, it is good to remember that change often brings conflict. There are presently a number of changes confronting Boston’s police force.

Violence has been a common strategy of whites to impede black economic progress. In addition to economic attacks on black towns, racial discrimination against individual black entrepreneurs has made it difficult for blacks to prosper in private enterprise.

Violence has been a common strategy of whites to impede black economic progress. In addition to economic attacks on black towns, racial discrimination against individual black entrepreneurs has made it difficult for blacks to prosper in private enterprise.

Social acceptance of racial diversity has been retarded by the mistaken belief that so-called African Americans belong to one coherent racial group. In fact, black opinions are heterogeneous.

New Jersey Democratic Senator Corey Booker flatly called the Georgia gubernatorial election a theft for GOP winner Brian Kemp. This was not partisan hyperbole. Thousands of eligible votes weren’t registered, were tossed, discounted, or ignored. The process was only slightly less muddled and outrageous in Florida where there were also widespread reports of irregularities, incompetence, fraud and manipulation.

All human beings belong to one species. We might look different and have different color hair and eyes, but we nonetheless all belong to one family. That’s too many for Thanksgiving dinner but not too many for human love.

What I’ve come to learn as a physician is that the ER is where the failures of public policy present themselves in their most crude, violent, and visceral form. Yes, we must have strong gun control laws on the books, but we must also address the conditions that allow violence to foster and create a situation where a young woman can be shot in the head during daylight hours.

The present system does not work. With Jeff Sessions no longer serving as attorney general, perhaps astute politicians will see that severe punishment for minor offenses does not solve the crime problem.

Numerous programs across the country attempt to return felons released from prison to useful lives. An important element of these efforts is for the released prisoners to become active in community affairs. However, restrictions on the voting rights of felons have impeded progress.

The long, often bloody history of America is littered with groups that have imposed a kind of white frontier vigilantism on blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other pariah groups.

The U.S. Constitution grants every citizen the right to vote, but somehow not every state has received the memo. Some state governments have made access to the polls more arduous for Democrats. With the size of support for Republicans withering, the strategy for victory has become to reduce the vote count for Democrats by any means necessary.