Email Author Erin Aubry Kaplan

2002 Stories by Erin Aubry Kaplan

• Look Homeward, Pollster

  published December 26, 2002

  During one of Senator Trent Lott‘s press conferences last week, which I believe was apology attempt number five, CNN busily conducted a viewe... More >>

• Lions in Winter

  published December 26, 2002

  The end of the year is as good a time as any to reflect on death. The idea may offend more than a few revelers who live for the season, but... More >>

• The Glamorous Life

  published November 28, 2002

  I never wanted to meet Annette Starr Hudson. When my sister said she‘d met an old woman at a convenience store whom she thought I might fin... More >>

• The Boy of Summer

  published November 14, 2002

  Earlier this year, walking among rows of student artwork as a juror in an annual countywide competition, I was stopped in my tracks by a... More >>

• What’s Black, Green and Not Yet Over?

  published November 7, 2002

  DONNA WARREN RECALLS THE EXACT MOMENT OF her political conversion with both the pragmatism and spiritual fervor that the phrase implies. It... More >>

• Revisionism Revisited

  published October 31, 2002

  Illustration by Shino Arihara ACCORDING TO A LONG, SOBER PIECE THAT RAN RECENTLY IN U.S. NEWS & World Report, the parks and monuments... More >>

• The Talented Mr. Ridley

  published October 17, 2002

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• Fear, Loathing and the Origins of Hip-Hop

  published October 17, 2002

  By even the most generous definition of ethnic diversity, Oliver Mayer is an odd breed: a playwright who’s part Jewish, part Latino, and wh... More >>

• The Empress’s New Clothes

  published September 26, 2002

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• Black and Blue

  published September 12, 2002

  WHEN THE OSCAR JOEL BRYANT Foundation emerged in 1968, the need for a fraternity of African-American police officers within the LAPD and law... More >>

• Into the Groove

  published August 22, 2002

  In the ’80s there were two women I wanted to be: Madonnaand Janet Jackson. For the record, I wanted to be Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison too... More >>

• Our Town

  published August 8, 2002

  All right, this is getting personal. I thought I was done mixing it up with those who would suggest that Inglewood is the second coming of... More >>

• Law and Disorder

  published July 18, 2002

  The BBC called to inquire what I thought of the Rodney King--style police beating that happened in Inglewood last week. My immediate thought... More >>

• Justice for All

  published July 11, 2002

  Several months ago I caught a discussion on nonprofit radio about a book that analyzed the success of Brown v. Board of Education, the... More >>

• Way of the Turtle

  published June 27, 2002

  Of all the shirts, socks, knickknacks, books, hand-lettered poems and office doohickeys I’ve presented to my father over the years of Father... More >>

• Break Dance

  published June 6, 2002

  Secession, it hardly needs to be said, is not an idea that resonates positively with black folks. The current secession movements are entirely... More >>

• Joe, We Hardly Knew Ye

  published June 6, 2002

  Last week’s L.A. Weekly feature story on Joe Hicks and his 30-year journey from the netherworld of black radicalism to the fold o... More >>

• God on the Tracks

  published May 30, 2002

  It hit me earlier this month as I rolled up to a stop at the crest of the hill that is Centinela and Florence avenues. I take in this... More >>

• Ten Years and a Cloud of Dust

  published May 2, 2002

  Michael Anderson is an architect and developer who has lived under a great gray cloud of disappointment ever since I‘ve known him. We met i... More >>

• A Really Big Stew

  published April 18, 2002

  THERE'S A LINE FROM A SONG ON STEW'S NEW ALBUM, The Naked Dutch Painter . . . and Other Songs, that brought me up short on a first... More >>

• Any Given Sunday

  published April 18, 2002

  Until a laudatory article in the Los Angeles Times turned me on to Lifetime‘s Any Day Now three years ago, I hadn’t watched a televisi... More >>

• Bernie and We

  published February 28, 2002

  I was planning to recuse myself from commenting on the Bernie Parks brouhaha, chiefly because so much is being said so often, by so many. Yet... More >>

• Omar's Comeback

  published February 21, 2002

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• Thank You, and Good Night

  published January 24, 2002

  Illustration by Shino Arihara In the beginning, I only knew that a kid was sick. It was like one of those tragic but instructively hopeful... More >>

• 10 Inner-City Stories You Didn’t Read . . . Again

  published January 3, 2002

  1. The seizing of the Watts Health Foundation by state regulators, putting in doubt the future of one of the very few insurance safety nets... More >>