About Me

I am Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. I am also the Academic Director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, in New Bedford MA. Author of "Social Security and the Middle Class Squeeze" (Praeger, 2005) and the forthcoming "Saul Alinsky the Dilemma of Race in the Post-War City" (University of Chicago Press), my teaching and scholarship focuses on American urban history, social policy, and politics. I am presently writing a book on home ownership in modern America, entitled "Castles Made of Sand? Home Ownership and the American Dream." I live in Providence RI, where I have served on the School Board since March 2015. All opinions posted here are my own.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Bibles and Circuses

So much for North Carolina as an 'enlightened' Southern state.


People: if you think that the institution of marriage is truly in danger in the United States, then please stop voting for politicians (and referenda) that ignore its greatest threat -- economic insecurity.

The ability of so many people to turn a religion based on love into one based on hate never ceases to amaze me. I don't want to just wax anti-religious here -- if it weren't for people of faith, North Carolina would still be a Jim Crow state -- but how many times do we have to see religion used to justify exclusion and hierarchy (slavery?), before we begin to question whether human flourishing is ultimately hindered by it?

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