"Hands Up, Don't Shoot" is not just about Mike Brown, or Ferguson, or police shooting unarmed black people. "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" is about a fundamental question that gets to the core of what this country stands for. It's a question that's been open to [...]
“Personal anecdotes don’t prove anything. The justice system isn’t racist. Black people are arrested more often because they commit more crime. Period. End of story.” So read the message in my inbox this morning, sent by someone who had happened across my essay about Ferguson, [...]
By Betsy L. Angert | Originally Published at EmpathyEducates. November 28, 2014 It took seconds to end a child's life. The young boy's life could have been saved, maybe. We will never know because "civil servants," "peace officers," just waited. Cleveland officials said the police officers waited. [...]
“Watermelonism” White People I Know What You’ve Done My godmother invites me to her church in Manhattan Beach, California. The congregation is large, White, and affluent. We are the only two Black people there. There is lunch after service. Members of the congregation have [...]
"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace." ~ Jeremiah 6:14 (NIV) After learning that the Ferguson grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting [...]
Why is it that the future of our children can only be seen as a case of "arrested development" and why is it that parents who fight for the rights of our young are repeatedly arrested? [Again!] Perhaps the answer can be found in a [...]
In the nine months since this initial report, we’ve learned a great deal more about how racial disparities animate criminal justice systems in Ferguson, Mo. and around the nation. On the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, here are just a few examples: Unarmed black men [...]
By Kimberly B. George | Originally Published at and a special to NewBlackMan (in Exile) November 3, 2014 By now you, like 27 million people, have probably seen the video: a woman walking around for 10 hours in New York. It’s a deeply painful video to watch—painful [...]
By Tiffanie Drayton | Originally Published at The Frisky. October 31, 2014 Dear Hollaback & Rob Bliss Creative, I have watched your collaborative video depicting the menacing street harassment of a young, white woman as she casually walked through the streets of New York. You captured dozens [...]
