We Are the World We Are the World
At 5 o'clock in the morning, the radio alarm begins to blare the news. The United States is threatening to pull out of the World Conference Against Racism if the conversati...
Aug 23, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Aren’t We Happy Yet? Aren’t We Happy Yet?
There was a short note in the New York Times a few months ago reporting that Governor Jeb Bush wept while speaking to the Southern Regional Conference of the National Baptist Con...
Jul 27, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Beyond the Village Pale Beyond the Village Pale
The United States has one of the highest rates of intrafamilial violence of any nation in the world. As a statistical composite, we Americans are a nation of grieving adults and ...
Jun 28, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
No Vengeance, No Justice No Vengeance, No Justice
Now that Timothy McVeigh has been executed, I suppose we're all supposed to stop talking about it--to "enjoy closure," a bit like the election. But McVeigh's execution wa...
Jun 14, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Bosco’s Big! Best! Believe It or Not! Bosco’s Big! Best! Believe It or Not!
Bosco, a black labrador retriever owned by Tim Stillman of Sunol, a small community near San Francisco, has been Mayor there for over eight years--after getting more votes than t...
May 31, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
The First 2,920 Days The First 2,920 Days
I was driving my son to soccer practice not long ago, listening to a National Public Radio wrap-up of President Bush's first hundred days in office. My son, who was just a baby w...
May 17, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
The Stochastic Aptitude Test The Stochastic Aptitude Test
A parody of Gone With the Wind has run into legal trouble: too revealing of the real nature of slavery?
May 3, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
The Right Stuff The Right Stuff
It was one of those odd little paragraphs that leap out at you, so filled with unexpected images it was. "What would Al Sharpton do if Bush calls him?" inquired Peter Noel in a r...
Jan 11, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Dear Virginia Dear Virginia
A Christmas letter to the state of Virginia.
Dec 22, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
By the Dawn’s Early Light By the Dawn’s Early Light
I write from shipboard, on the Nation cruise. The boat has just pulled away from port and chugs toward the horizon, leaving land behind. We are fourth in a line of cruise ships d...
Dec 7, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams