At the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb delivers trenchant criticism of President Barack Obama’s leadership. Responding to his remarks on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Cobb asks, “Has a black presidency moved us closer to the ideal of King’s dream, or reflected its exhaustion as a real possibility?” Four years have passed [since…

Comparing and contrasting the varied ways in which gun violence could escalate in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Jelani Cobb at the New Yorker says that “Stand your ground” laws should be repealed. The verdict has given the National Rifle Association renewed vigor to peddle right-wing vigilantism,…

Jelani Cobb writes at the New Yorker that that the most damning component of George Zimmerman’s acquittal is the painful knowledge that Trayvon Martin was essentially found guilty of being a young black male.  The not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial came down moments after I left a screening of “Fruitvale Station,” a film…

In a piece for the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb discusses the George Zimmerman trial, which began on Monday, in terms of America’s gun culture and perceptions of race. It’s possible — no, reasonable — to look at Martin’s death as the opening scene in a four-act drama centering on American gun culture. The subsequent scenes…

Jelani Cobb writes in the New Yorker that Malcolm Shabazz, who died last week in Mexico, was a young man still defining his place amid a looming legacy.  The passage of time made the troubles of Malcolm X’s own youth appear as stations on some racial cross: the impoverished youth who became the heartless hustler,…

Rodney King became much more than a man; he was a cultural marker who alerted America to the police state that existed. His beating and treatment at the hands of the police sparked the Los Angeles riots, writes Jelani Cobb in the New Yorker. King later recalled that, during the beating, he thought of slaves…