Monthly Archives: January 2008

Faith-Based Bribery

By Ray Watkins | Published: January 21, 2008
The fears of those who predicted that billions of dollars in faith-based subsidies distributed by the Bush Administration to churches across the country would build a Republican patronage machine in white constituencies, and severely blunt the prophetic edge of the Black Church, may be coming to pass. Where once Black pastors were among the few who could speak truth to power with little fear of economic retaliation, many may now have ministries with governmental funding streams to worry about, while the least principled among them have been emboldened to ape the talking points and political interventions of white right wing ministers. In the current context, given the flood of corporate money available to pliant African American politicians, and the lack...
Posted in Economics, Miscellaneous, Online Places | Comments closed

Class Tells

By Ray Watkins | Published: January 18, 2008
One of the many things we find hard to talk about — not only here in Princeton, but nationally — is class. That helps to explain why we do such a bad job when we try to talk about the social mission of elite universities. Take Drew Faust — the excellent historian who recently became president of Harvard. As a scholar and a writer, Faust uses words with great skill and care — so well that her most recent book was published by Alfred Knopf in New York, one of the few remaining bastions of quality in the trade. But when Harvard announced its new financial aid policy, aimed at students whose families earn between $120,000 and $180,000 a year,...
Posted in Composition, Language, Professional, Writing | Comments closed