A recent headline in the New York Times announced: “Metropolitan Opera Says Its ‘Otello’ Tenor Will Not Wear Blackface.” Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, made clear that the decision not to use any dark makeup on its white tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko in the Met’s new production of Verdi’s…

If someone whom a Republican president had appointed to a high government position were to give a speech defending the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation under the heading of “separate but equal,” one would expect a political firestorm.  Yet when just…