Word: gravest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Question her about why the military remains her gravest threat, and she reacts defensively at first: "Why am I being judged so severely? When I assumed office, I did not have a single general with me." On further reflection, she tells with self-deprecating humor how the armed forces Chief of Staff, General Renato de Villa, tried to cheer her up when Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the newly elected President of Nicaragua, had to adjudicate between the Sandinista military and the contras: "At least, ma'am, you only have one army...
Still, since coming to power in 1987, Ben Ali has steered a less anti- Islamic course than did his predecessor. He reopened the Islamic university in Tunis, pardoned some 10,000 political prisoners, loosened press restrictions and encouraged the creation of non-Islamic parties. Ben Ali's gravest challenge may come from students and unemployed youths, who will no doubt be inspired by the fundamentalist success in Algeria...
Maddox and Allen write that Stuart "animated the gravest fear of white America; a crazed, degenerate Black man kills an innocent, pregnant lawyer and child, destroys a family which symbolizes middle-class prosperity." I would first reject the notion of a homogenous "white America." The social, economic and ethnic diversity of the 200 million or so whites in America is too great to justify such terminology. I doubt that Donald Trump, Johnny Carson and a Kansas farmer wake up every morning with much in common on their minds. Second, even if one were to assume that all of "white America...
...their conclusion, Maddox and Allen reiterate their frustration at "the persistent level of racism and ethnocentric ignorance of so many whites." Racism and ethnocentric ignorance? This is after the authors have lumped 200 million people into "white America," stated that this white America's gravest fear is of being attacked by a crazed, degenerate Black man, and legitimized this "fear" by saying that "white society" perceives Black men as murderous, adulterous beasts. If we define racism as attributing individual characteristics and beliefs to a race as a whole, Maddox and Allen have all the "racism and ethnocentric ignorance" that they...
...warped brilliance of Charles Stuart is that he exploited the latent prejudice of middle-class white society. He wisely tapped the deepest well of racial and class bias of middle-class America. He animated the gravest fear of white America: a crazed, degenerate Black man kills an innocent, pregnant lawyer and child, destroys a family which symbolizes white middle-class prosperity. It was all so believable, so real. He created a story which so much of white America wanted to believe in order to justify its own racism...