The Stochastic Aptitude Test The Stochastic Aptitude Test
A parody of Gone With the Wind has run into legal trouble: too revealing of the real nature of slavery?
May 3, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
The Right Stuff The Right Stuff
It was one of those odd little paragraphs that leap out at you, so filled with unexpected images it was. "What would Al Sharpton do if Bush calls him?" inquired Peter Noel in a r...
Jan 11, 2001 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Dear Virginia Dear Virginia
A Christmas letter to the state of Virginia.
Dec 22, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
By the Dawn’s Early Light By the Dawn’s Early Light
I write from shipboard, on the Nation cruise. The boat has just pulled away from port and chugs toward the horizon, leaving land behind. We are fourth in a line of cruise ships d...
Dec 7, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Now Set the Teeth… Now Set the Teeth…
Afew days before the election, I accompanied a friend to the dentist's office. It was one of those situations in which appearance takes over more complex realities of who we are....
Nov 10, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Middling Against the Ends Middling Against the Ends
This presidential race leaves an odd sensation among those of us not having a television. Like the much-cited Kennedy-Nixon race, in which the camera was generally thought to ha...
Oct 26, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Getting Out the Vote Getting Out the Vote
I'm surprised at how many otherwise thoughtful people seem convinced that this election "makes no difference." In my very first Nation column, I quoted Justice Antonin Scalia, wh...
Oct 12, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Circus Maximus Circus Maximus
We don't have a TV at home, so we've missed the much-drubbed NBC Olympics coverage. So when a little friend of my son's said she'd been watching, I asked her if any of the event...
Sep 28, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams
Au Clair de la Lune Au Clair de la Lune
The month of June always makes me wistful. School's out. A half-liberated, half-sad seasonal sensation settles over me, a feeling I associate with childhood and summer vacation.
Jun 15, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Little House in the ‘Hood Little House in the ‘Hood
I was wandering around Harlem recently, late on a warm Sunday afternoon: I saw Dominican families chatting on stoops. I saw African-American families walking home from church.
Jun 1, 2000 / Column / Patricia J. Williams