Three Pittsburgh police officers are currently on trial for allegedly beating and fabricating reasons for arresting 20 year-old Jordan Miles in January of 2010. Is this how you “serve and protect” the community?
When we blame Black women for our failure to be seen as “real men” in a White racist society we only show ourselves to be immature. Our mothers, our sisters, our aunts, our girlfriends, our wives, and nieces are not our enemy.
The most sobering moment in Paul Beatty’s satirical novel, The White Boy Shuffle (1996) occurs just before the L.A. Riots are about to begin. The book’s protagonist, Gunnar Kaufman and his best friend Nicholas Scoby are on their way home from a strangely long basketball practice. During their walk, Gunnar immediately senses something different happening in his […]
A recent study of the controversial, so-called ‘flash mob’ phenomenon suggests that flash mobs are largely triggered by boredom, a lack of resources, and a desire to “provoke older people and make havoc.” What do you think is the driving force behind violent flash mobs?
Right hands on holsters at thickish cop hips. Left ones raising splinters with palm sweat on their wooden beating poles. Shaking in their bullet proof spacesuits, bitter and shaking in their “I-think-they’ll-b-safe” suits, they are over armed, ready for attack against the mob equipped with a radical thirst.
Since I was a little a brown girl, I have always secretly wanted to save the world. Yes, the whole big world. To say the least, I was utterly enthralled with movies like Indian Jones and the last Crusade to the point of obscene dissidence to the 80s generational black-uplift narrative of being a lawyer […]
I have beef with Brittney Griner. It’s not because the Baylor University women’s basketball team she leads beat Notre Dame in the women’s NCAA Division 1 championship a couple of weeks ago, and I like an underdog–even if it is Notre Dame. It’s not because my beloved Tennessee Lady Volunteers were one of Baylor’s casualties […]
George Zimmerman has officially launched a website from which he is soliciting sympathy and donations to his legal defense fund. Do you feel bad for George Zimmerman?
 When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and […]
“If  We Must Die” If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die So that our precious blood may not be shed […]
If we could all conjure up memories of our K-12 education, we will remember that at some point in time, we were forced to work in a group and offer some sort of peer critique. In order to do this effectively and productively with minimal tension, teachers would talk about something called “constructive criticism,” this […]
I just got back yesterday from a 9 day trip to the West Coast that was one of the most productive, fun, and painful journeys I’ve ever experienced. It started on February 10th in Portland, Oregon at Portland’s Sixth Annual Youth Summit. I was blessed to be a judge at the youth talent show competition, […]
