We must support the Black men in Philadelphia being destroyed by gun violence
In the streets of Philadelphia, young Black men are the likeliest victims of gun violence, and they are dying at the hands of men who look like them. Some say this is evidence that racism has no role in the murders that have spread through our community like a virus. But that’s not true. Racism…
Read More As masks come off in Philly there’s reason for hope
These days there’s a lot to talk about in Philly. In the face of a gun violence crisis that’s killing Black men in droves, City Council voted to ban dirt bikes, the state legislature is trying to bring back voter suppression, and while the little guy gets harassed for every penny, big businesses don’t pay…
Read More Extend Trump’s Facebook ban indefinitely, or risk more people’s lives
On Friday Facebook extended it’s ban on Donald Trump, saying they’ll reevaluate in two years. Why does it matter? Because social media is just as powerful as traditional media. That’s why YouTube star Logan Paul was able to get a multimillion-dollar exhibition against Floyd Mayweather. It’s why Kim Kardashian and her sisters still matter.…
Read More Black people organized and got the Facebook cops fired. That story must be told
I’ve long known that some of the Philadelphia police officers who were fired after their racist or bigoted Facebook comments were exposed by the 2019 Plainview Project were trying to get their jobs back through arbitration. That’s why reading about it in The Inquirer was no surprise. I was, however, taken aback that the full story of…
Read More As America comes out of the COVID bubble, what should we do now?
What now? After a year of COVID-19, with its body counts and job losses and Zoom meetings and vaccines. What do we do now that the mask mandates are easing and the weather is changing and people are slowly, cautiously, starting to come out from behind the walls that kept us so far apart? Over…
Read More Black lives matter.
That’s what went through my mind on the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre that killed an estimated 300 Black people a century ago, that burned down dozens of city blocks, that left thousands of Black people homeless, and stripped the wealth from a neighborhood so prosperous it was known as Black Wall Street. But…
Read More We’ve learned much from the Tulsa race massacre. Here’s how we can use that knowledge today
It’s been 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre, where up to 300 people were killed and a community was burned to the ground. And all of it because Black people had the nerve to stand up for themselves. It began on May 30, 1921, when a Black teenager named Dick Rowland entered an elevator in…
Read More Donald Trump’s lies have led to a grand jury investigation in New York. Will there be an indictment?
There is unfinished business in America. Black folks must get reparations for slavery. Prisons must stop being replacements for plantations. And as we reflect on the anniversary of an infamous act of police brutality, we must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. But not all of our unfinished business revolves around race. Some…
Read More George Floyd’s family carries the pain of all the Black families who came before them
On Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the fight for justice arrives at the White House, as Floyd’s family meets with President Joe Biden. It is a moment of persistence, like Frederick Douglass’ 1863 visit to Lincoln’s White House to protest the treatment of Black soldiers. It…
Read More Banning critical race theory does not hide America’s racism. It reinforces it.
Texas is the latest state to try to ban critical race theory from being taught in the classroom. What’s Critical race theory? It’s the study of race and racism in America. Critical race theorists believe that America’s laws create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially Black people. And here…
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