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Meet the (White) Press: Racism in ‘Progressive’ Media Spaces
If more evidence were needed of how black bodies are pawns in political chess, look no further than Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press. Just days after nine African Americans were murdered inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in what many agree was an act of anti-black terrorism, Chuck Todd and his producers decided…
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On 'Liberty' and Lies: U.S. Flag Also Symbolizes Anti-Black Terrorism
In the wake of the terrorist attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a social media campaign has emerged to #TakeItDown, urging South Carolina to remove the confederate flag from the South Carolina State Capitol building. Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old white supremacist responsible for the attack, holds deep hatred for Black…
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‘Things Fall Apart’: On Mother Emanuel and White Terrorism
Zion Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Natchez, Miss., the church of my youth, was established in 1866, approximately 50 years after Emanuel AME Church, referred to as “Mother Emanuel,” in Charleston, S.C. It is the intertwining legacies of these two institutions that came to mind when I first heard that Emanuel’s pastor, the Rev.…
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Let’s Not Question Blackness Because a White Woman Says So
I’ve spent much of the last few days crying real tears over black Twitter’s brilliant and hilarious responses to Rachel Dolezal’s shenanigans. Seriously, search #AskRachel and #RachelDolezal if you need a pick-me-up. Then the conversations turned serious. I saw how much pain she was causing sisters like me who have been demeaned for the very…
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This Father’s Day, Let’s Shatter the Myth About the Absent Black Father
Black men are present and engaged fathers who love their children. Black men are present and engaged fathers who love their children. I needed to write that twice, in hopes that it cuts through the racist and patently false narrative amplified by mainstream media that the majority of black fathers are scurrilous beings who are…
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McKinney, Texas: Rage Is Our Rightful Response to Anti-Black Racism
If those were my sons, somebody would have to post my bail money. That was my first thought when I watched the now-viral video of white police officers—allegedly responding to disturbances at a private pool party in McKinney, Texas—throwing black teenage boys to the ground and handcuffing them. When, in the same video, I watched…
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3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets: The Death of Jordan Davis
When Michael Dunn murdered 17-year-old Jordan Davis in the parking lot of Gate gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., on Nov. 23, 2012, the bullets not only ripped through Jordan’s body but also tore open the hearts of his parents, Ron Davis and Lucia McBath, before finally slicing through the post-racial lie America pretends to believe…
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Throw Away the Script: How Media Bias Is Killing Black America
Media injustice, which leads to both the erasure and criminalization of marginalized communities, has had dire consequences for both the psyches and lived experiences of black people in the United States since at least the 18th century, when newspapers ran lost-and-found ads for runaway slaves. In 1964 it compelled Malcolm X to stand before a…
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Why Do All the Superheroes Have to Be White, and All the Thugs Black?
It seems as if some white people have had a deep investment in the “white superhero” since the creation of blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, and now that noxious narcissism has spilled over into pushback against Marvel’s Fantastic Four. Michael B. Jordan, who rose to fame portraying 22-year-old Oscar Grant in 2013’s Fruitvale Station, has been tapped to…
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Happy X Day? The Case Against a Federal Holiday for Malcolm X
There has been no federal holiday designated to honor Malcolm X, and on Tuesday, on what would have been his 90th birthday—in the midst of the continued devaluation of black bodies and the dismissal of black truth—the question on some people’s minds is: Should there be? He was born May 19, 1925, as Malcolm Little…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
