Larry Elder

“Can anybody explain this to me — why is it that nearly all our contestants are white men? I’m a white man, so you know I have nothing against them, but come on. We would really like a little more diversity.” Last week, Regis Philbin, host of...

THANK YOU, Donna Brazile. If Hollywood is smart, they would send this lady a dozen long-stem red roses. I’ll explain. NBC, along with the other major networks, faced an NAACP boycott for failing to increase minority hiring. Under pressure, NBC just agreed to add...

“What’s he really done in life?” A Montgomery civil rights worker posed this question about Martin Luther King III — the eldest son of legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Pretty heavy thing, being named King III, and now he...

“White racism exists,” “National Review” editor John O’Sullivan once said, “But its social power is weak. And the social power against it, overwhelming.” Too bad white Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker did not consult...

“I was spellbound.” A black minister, attending a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, made this gushing assessment. Bradley addressed 150 black ministers in Los Angeles, at an annual meeting of the Congress of National Black Churches....

“Exodus of female recruits signals trouble for military!” “Military women less likely to advance!” A new Defense Department study on bias in the military prompted these hysterical headlines. For those who thought the military an example of...

Well, at least it’s not about race. Reverend Jackson intervened on behalf of seven black Decatur, Illinois, high school students, expelled for inciting a brawl at a high school football game. “This isn’t about black and white,” he insists,...

In an ideal world, the reporter would have been Jim Gray-ed. Instead, Andy Hiller, a reporter for WHDH-TV, the NBC station in Boston, got big headlines. He asked GOP candidate George W. Bush a series of four questions. Name the heads, asked Hiller, of the following...

It’s on. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just released a new study. Americans, say the CDC, face a new epidemic — fat people. The CDC calls nearly 18 percent of Americans “obese,” meaning that nearly one in five of us weighs more...

Imagine interviewing Noah without bringing up the flood. Baseball sports fans apparently expected that of NBC news reporter Jim Gray when he interviewed Pete Rose. Before the second game of the World Series, Gray interviewed Pete Rose, a member of the so-called...

A Los Angeles police officer, earlier this year, shot and killed a 54 year-old, black, homeless and, apparently, mentally ill woman. Two officers observed Margaret Mitchell pushing a shopping cart down the street, and stopped to question her as to the ownership of the...

“The Secrets of the SAT,” a PBS “Frontline” special, aired a few weeks ago. For sixty minutes, with virtually no “experts” offering opposing views, the show attacked the Scholastic Aptitude Test, required by most colleges. Opponents...

California Just Reported a 29 percent drop-off in cigarette sales. Good news, say supporters of Proposition 10, the voter-approved initiative that places a 50-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes. Actor-director Rob Reiner, who spearheaded the initiative, barely contained...

Does a bad-mouthed cop, by definition, exercise bad judgment? Last December 1998, in Riverside, California, a 19-year-old black woman, Tyisha Miller, sat in an apparent coma with a gun on her lap, in a locked car with the motor running. Her companions called 911, and...

“You have to answer the question. It won’t go away.” — Reverend Jesse Jackson The subject? George W. Bush. The “question (that) won’t go away”? Bush’s alleged cocaine use. Meet Reverend Jesse “Zero-Tolerance”...

Fifty percent of whites find segregation OK, as do 40 percent of blacks. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) commissioned a poll that uncovered these “shocking” results. Predictably, the mainstream media led the parade....

Self-defense works. Laws don’t matter if authorities don’t do their jobs. These are the two most profound lessons learned from the recent shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, a shooting that resulted in five wounded. The...

Ronald Reagan gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. On July 22, 1999, the Associated Press published a story: “Letters Shed Light on Reagan’s Life.” Lorraine Wagner, a Philadelphia woman, maintained a 50-year- long correspondence with Ronald...