Columnist
Otis Sanford is professor emeritus of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis and political commentator for WATN-TV ABC24 News. Contact him at o.sanford@memphis.edu.
There are 248 articles by Otis Sanford :
“It’s easy for (Mississippi Gov. Tate) Reeves and others of his ilk to continually recite Dr. King’s words about content of character and pretend that racism no longer exists.”
Quiet as it’s kept, some parents want their children to learn the accurate history of America and the role that race, gender, ethnicity and privilege played in that history.
‘It’s too bad Republicans in the state legislature don’t read the election commission web site. They never got the memo about nonpartisanship.’
Tennessee Republicans have been railing against businesses, local governments and schools for doing everything in their power to control the spread of a virus that has infected 1.2 million Tennesseans and led to more than 16,000 needless deaths.
Otis Sanford: “...while Powell never sought the office himself, he had tremendous influence with voters during tough presidential election years.”
Worth Morgan formally announced Monday, Oct. 11, as a Republican candidate for Shelby County mayor.
The man just brought a Ford assembly plant to the state with more jobs than anyone in this region could have imagined. How can his potential challengers, Republican or Democrat, top that?
Shelby may still be the largest of Tennessee’s 95 counties, but it long ago lost the influence and cachet that it once enjoyed statewide.
After the most horrific attack on American soil in our lifetime, we stood unified against a common enemy. And, despite our differences today, I believe we can do so again.
So yes, COVID has laid bare our social inequities and made our divisiveness seem irreparable. It is not.
And now that the Food and Drug Administration has moved the Pfizer vaccine from emergency-use authorization to full approval, I expect to see more employers, public and private, requiring the vaccine as a condition of employment.
How did a seemingly rational, successful, God-fearing businessman – albeit with no previous political or government experience – so easily become a wavering tool of the far right without exhibiting so much as a shred of credible leadership?
Without question, this is another senseless shooting death that could have been avoided in a number of ways.
It remains unclear how far teachers can go in discussing how racial injustice in the past impacts our society today. Republican lawmakers say that discussion is off limits. I say it is necessary.
Otis Sanford says the dispute between Mayor Lee Harris and County Commissioner Mark Billingsley seems to portend the year ahead for politics in Shelby County.
Forrest believed that the worth of Black people was only as laborers, nothing more.
Otis Sanford: ‘I am calling on all Memphians to honor Wells this week and beyond by committing to help forge a more peaceful city. Deadly gun violence does not have to be just the way it is in the big city.’
Thompson is not taking on this assignment as a neutral fact-finder. He does not have to be. The House is not a court of law and committee members are not unbiased jurors.
Law enforcement is not helpless in trying to curb the lawlessness. But it will take cooperation from all of us who want safer streets and highways.
Otis Sanford and Mark White have a friendly, but spirited, showdown over their polar opposite views about how to talk to Tennessee school children about race and racism.
Criticize Critical Race Theory if you must. But Republicans cannot legislate away the lasting impact of slavery and racism on American history.
An incident at Health Sciences Park goes beyond one opportunistic racist hothead with more Confederate flags than he has sense. It’s emblematic of the growing white resentment to America’s reckoning with race.
Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill May 24 without comment. Because what could he really say that makes sense? His first and apparently only attempt to explain the rationale for the law would have been fine for a White Citizens Council meeting in the 1960s.
Ida B. Wells’ words and actions put to shame efforts by state legislatures today – including ours in Tennessee – to ban the teaching of systemic racism and its detrimental impact on people of color.
Within the span of about three days, the House and Senate imposed their Caucasian-centered, conservative will on what can and cannot by taught in schools about racism’s sordid history and harmful impact.