Jezebel: Bob Herbert

The Oppression Olympics

Anna North — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Bob Herbert criticized America's "barbaric treatment of women." Anne Applebaum says barbarians only live in other countries — like Saudi Arabia. So stop protesting against misogyny, ladies, and be happy with your right to "leave the house." [Double X] More »

Bob Herbert: "The Barbaric Treatment Of Women And Girls Has Come To Be More Or Less Expected"

Hortense Smith — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EDT

In today's New York Times, Bob Herbert argues that "we would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem." Some of his commenters disagree. More »

Dick Armey Insults Salon Editor, Lives Up To His Name On Hardball

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:20:00 EST

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Dick Armey was so stymied by Salon's Joan Walsh on Hardball this evening that he was reduced to saying he's glad she isn't his wife... so he doesn't have to listen to her "prattle." More »

Geraldine Ferraro: You = What The Media Needs To Start Ignoring

Moe — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

GODDAMMIT GERALDINE, you just had to drag me back down into your withering wackjob abyss. I said I was never going to post about the Clinton campaign and sexism, since more than 12 out of 12 Clinton campaign surrogates agree that's not why she lost to Obama (despite that, congrats on winning Kentucky yesterday!), and then you go on Fox News and tell Shep Smith that Bob Herbert is a "black journalist who is a surrogate for Obama" on the basis that he is an unremitting misogynist who "hasn't had anything nice to say about Hillary in the last six months." Well, Geraldine, your charge that the media ignores sexism brought me back to a column I read about five months ago. "If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media," it opined, "it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America." Well, if it wasn't written by BOB HERBERT himself! Not that you'd bother reading the writings of such a blatant token with a political leanings so simpleminded he would support a candidate solely on the basis of a shared RACE. Anyway, that and oil prices, Hezbollah, a new World Bank report and how come there are no black people in Kentucky with Megan and (a somewhat irate) me after the jump. More »

It Was A Nice Day For A White Voter

Moe — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Welcome back kids! How was el fin de semana? Because it sure sucked for a lot of our overseas amigos! A devastating earthquake on the scale of an earthquake that killed a quarter million people in 1976 just rocked China's Sichuan province; Burma's totalitarian military junta decided to grant itself unlimited totalitarian power and all the donated rice; no one can really protest the junta since they are mostly all dead and/or starving to death anyway; hopefully Jenna Bush did the sensitive thing and refrained from throwing rice at her wedding; two John McCain advisers did the sensitive thing and stepped down when it turned out they'd actually taken three hundred grand from the junta for PR services. Bob Barr and Ron Paul both launched separate attempts to do what voters are already doing anyway and sink McCain's campaign; Michelle Obama is nixin Hillary as a running mate (according to Bob Novak?!) and speaking of Nixon, there's a new book on him and the white voters who elected him and we read all about it sorta. All that and a Vito Fossella primer ATJ. More »

Prostitution Prosecution

Jessica G. — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:45:00 EST

In today's New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert tells the story of a Queens police detective, Wayne Taylor, and his girlfriend, Zalika Brown, who are accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl and forcing her into prostitution. Allegedly the couple told the girl that they had purchased her for $500 — like a slave — and forced her to have sex for money. Herbert uses this anecdote as a jumping off point to discuss a change needed in the way sex crimes are prosecuted. Even though in this scenario, police acted positively towards the girl, Herbert argues, "What's needed is a paradigm shift. Society (and thus law enforcement) needs to view any adult who sexually exploits a child as a villain, and the exploited child as a victim of that villainy. If a 35-year-old pimp puts a 16-year-old girl on the street and a 30-year-old john pays to have sex with her, how is it reasonable that the girl is most often the point in that triangle that is targeted by law enforcement?" Is prostitution prosecution in need of an overhaul? [New York Times] More »

Bob Herbert And Barbara Ehrenreich: We Are Feeling The Love

Moe — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:30:00 EST

Nickel and Dimed author Barbara Eherenreich and New York Times columnist Bob Herbert both wrote opinion pieces this week about the Hillary-Obama battles that I meant to devote some time to praising. I mean if anything has been sorta productive about this BATSHIT CRAZY EMOTIONAL primary campaign, it's that it's given white women a chance to reflect on how much they love black men, and black men to reciprocate in kind for white women.* Anyway, so Bob wrote about Jamie Lee Jones and the desensitizing of our society to "dark persistence of misogyny in America." Then Barb penned a piece on the historic importance of Martin Luther King and the indisputable imperative of grassroots involvement and a riled-up civil society in fighting for a cause.

Black civil rights weren't won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings, and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about.