Race Matters
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A 'Confederacy of Whiteness': Virginia Military Institute's Uncivil War Against Its Black Students
When Vice President Mike Pence visited the Virginia Military Institute, the Black students disappeared. That is not a metaphor. Everyone loves a good metaphor. But Mike Pence is not the personification of VMI’s racism, and there are much better ways to compare 181-year old VMI—the oldest state-supported military college in the U.S.—with the 244-year-old country…
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White Privilege Strikes Again: Nets Ignore Bevy of Qualified Black Coaches in Order to Hand Steve Nash the Keys to the Kingdom
For 15 years, Patrick Ewing languished in NBA purgatory as an assistant coach. From the Washington Wizards to the Rockets, then onto the Magic and eventually the Hornets, he was routinely praised for his coaching acumen while inexplicably never being offered a head-coaching gig—despite his wealth of experience on the sidelines. Year after year, coaching…
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In Ghana, I Experienced an Interaction With the Police Unlike Any I'd Expect in America
All I could say after “it” concluded—and after I picked my face and bowels up off the floor of the car—was, “it is amazing what is possible when racism isn’t central to interactions with the authorities.” I may have fainted after that; I’ll ask my wife. The “it” in question was an interaction with police…
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Donald Trump Blasts Black Lives Matter as 'Discriminatory,' 'Bad for Black People' Because of Course, He Did
Kids are a lot of work. They get into everything, have limitless curiosity and oftentimes have to be saved from themselves. If it were up to a child, they’d eat ice cream for breakfast, Skittles for lunch and skip dinner entirely to watch reruns of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They’re well-intended though, so their cuteness might…
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‘He Can Say It to Me, But I Can’t Say It to Him?’: White South Carolina Officer Suspended After Repeatedly Using N-Word
It’s about time we have a serious discussion about one particular wypipo proverb: “If they can say it, why can’t I?” A white South Carolina police officer has been suspended after he was recorded Saturday repeatedly using the n-word outside of a bar where he was called to enforce a state ordinance put in place…
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‘My Environment Has Been Harmed by This African Black Person’: El Segundo Karen’s Racist Rant Recorded
Anti-Blackness is a special brand of racism. It seems like everywhere in the world where Black people exist, non-Black people perceive us as a threat and will weaponize their irrational fear of us without hesitation. Non-white people of color are not immune to this behavior. In El Segundo, Calif., three Black women went for a…
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Black Staff Member at Iowa State Victim of Racist Vandalism
A residence hall director at Iowa State University made an uncomfortable discovery when he found racial slurs spray painted throughout his residential storage room. WHO13 reports that Neo Thurston Jr., a 29-year-old Black man, entered the room and found that various forms of hate speech, including the N-word, were spray-painted on the floor, shelving unit…
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Missouri Newspaper Criticized for Racist Martin Luther King Jr. 'I Have a Dream' Caricature Cartoon
White people (and non-Black people of color for that matter) would do well to just keep Martin Luther King Jr.’s name out of their mouths. This goes especially for conservatives who only seem to know one excerpt of one speech from one civil rights leader and so they invoke their version of MLK every time…
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Abolish Gutless White Journalists Saying 'America' When They Clearly Mean 'White America'
You cannot read Ethan Strauss’s piece on the NBA’s rating problems without a subscription to The Athletic. Fortunately, you do not need to read it to have read it, because his 25-character tweet accurately synopsizes the 2,000 words behind the paywall. In it, Strauss stretches himself into logical origami to determine that the NBA’s very…