Category Archives: Politics & Public Affairs

You’re Once, Twice, 34 Times a “Felon”

Posted on June 12, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Recently, in “The President’s Brief” from The Marshall Project, Carroll Bogert penned an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. She wrote: Since Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies last week, gleeful headlines have sprouted across the media, with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Justice Chronicles, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Carroll Bogert, Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, Donald Trump Felon, Eddie Ellis, Injustice: First Felon President, Marshall Project, New York Post, New York Times, NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, The Washington Post, Trump is a felon, U.S. Attorney General | Leave a comment

A Red Record Redux

Posted on May 30, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, in A Red Record (1895), about the bloody murders of Black people at the hands of white people, lists three “excuses” white people gave for the wholesale murder of Black people by whites. The excuses are: …the … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, Streets of Rage | Tagged 15th Amendment, A Red Record, Al Capone, American Fiction, Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Civil War, Donald Trump, Equal Justice Initiative, Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, Ida B. Wells, Ku Klux Klan, Martin Luther King Jr., miscegenation, No Negro Domination, raising black boys, Reconstruction, Regulators, Relationships, Rudy Giuliani, Slavery, The Rape of the Negro Girl | Leave a comment

A Red Record

Posted on May 27, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In my last blog I indicated that in the next one I would write something about crime and punishment. For more than half my life, I have written extensively on the subject, in letters to editors, editorials, essays, and anthologies. … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged #BlueLivesMatter, A History of Racial Injustice, BlackLivesMatter, Corrections 360, Dred Scott Decision, Equal Justice Initiative, National Poetry Series, NYPD, police involved shooting, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, United States Supreme Court | Leave a comment

The Writing Life: Writing An Award-Winning Epic Poem

Posted on May 13, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My epic poem, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present, was a co-winner of the 1998 Edwin Mellen Poetry Prize for an epic poem on the theme, “the captivity, exploitation, and suffering of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged 1998 Edwin Mellen Poetry Prize, Africa's Gift to America, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, J.A. Rogers, James Weldon Johnson, Lift Every Voice and Sing, Rene Descartes, Sex & Race, Slavery, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Picture of Dorian Gray, W. E. B. Du Bois | 1 Comment

The Assassination of Dr. King – My first “political memory”

Posted on April 4, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My first political memory, at age 7, is the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was too young to remember the assassinations of JFK and Malcolm X, and although RFK would be assassinated later in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Growing Up, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, raising black boys, Revolution, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged Andrew Goodman, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Decisive Decade, Growing Up, James Chaney, Jim Crow, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Schwerner, Mississippi Burning, murder, Poetry, raising black boys, Robert F. Kennedy, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, The Black Blood of Poetry, urban decay | 1 Comment

From the American Revolution to the Black Arts Cultural Revolution

Posted on February 21, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

After the American Revolution, most of the defining moments in American history involve or revolve around Black people. Black folk were even involved in the American Revolution, fighting on both sides – the British promised Africans and the descendants of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Streets of Rage | Tagged 1619, 1619 Project, American Revolution, Black Arts Era, Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Boston Massacre, Camelot, Crispus Attucks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Growing Up, John F. Kennedy, Larry Neal, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Nation of Islam, patriotism, Poetry, Robert F. Kennedy, Slavery, urban decay | Leave a comment

Happy Valentine’s Day to African American Literature!

Posted on February 14, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Since it is Valentine’s Day, I dare to say that I have an ongoing love affair with African American literature. And, once again, I am teaching African American Literature in the 20th Century for another college. (I previously taught it … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged African American Literature, Amherst method, Andra Day, Black Arts Movement, Black National Anthem, Black Patriotism, Black Poetics, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Booker T. Washington, Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America -- An Anthology, Eurocentric, Henry Louis Gates, Herb Boyd, James Weldon Johnson, Larry Neal, Lift Every Voice and Sing, Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Robert L. Allen, Slavery, Some Reflections on the Black Aesthetic, Three Negro Classics, Toni Morrison, Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The African American Presence in American Literature, Valentine's Day, Valerie A. Smith, W. E. B. Du Bois | 2 Comments

The Black Arts Movement

Posted on February 8, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The theme for this Black History Month is African Americans and the Arts. For purposes of this blog, I’ll highlight the “Black Arts Era” (1960-1975). The Black Arts Era began at the very beginning of what Samuel F. Yette, influential … Continue reading →

Posted in Education & Teaching, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Black Arts Era, Black History Month, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Decisive Decade, democracy, John F. Kennedy, Larry Neal, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, murder, Nation of Islam, Robert F. Kennedy, Samuel Yette | 2 Comments

Happy Birthday to Black History Month!

Posted on February 7, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Black History Month is nearly 100 years old! Granted, it began as Black History Week, on February 7, 1926, and didn’t become Black History Month until February 10, 1976. My father, a Native Southern Son, was born in the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Education & Teaching, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society | Tagged Black History Month, Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, fathers, Frederick Douglass, Gerald Ford, Growing Up, Lost Cause, Martin Luther King Jr., Negro History Week, patriotism, raising black boys, segregated U.S. Army, The Miseducation of the Negro, W. E. B. Du Bois, What is the Fourth of July to the Negro?, World War II | 2 Comments

Correcting The Miseducation of the Negro

Posted on February 3, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Carter G. Woodson’s seminal book, The Miseducation of the Negro, published in 1926, is a book Black folk should periodically revisit, perhaps every three years, ideally every year. If you are Black and you have not read the book, then … Continue reading →

Posted in Education & Teaching, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged 1619 Project, Aristotelian Logic, Aunt Jemima, Black History Month, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Brown v. Board of Education, Candace Owens, Carter G. Woodson, Clarence Thomas, Classical Rhetoric, Compulsory Education Act (1852), General Grammar, Jim Crow, Nicholas Capaldi, Plessy v. Ferguson, raising black boys, Russell Sage College, Slavery, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, The Miseducation of the Negro, The Trivium, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, Uncle Tom | 4 Comments

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