culture

Even before the car stopped, the police officers began swarming out of their own cars. They snatched the three young black men out of their vehicle, threw them onto the ground in the streets of North Philadelphia, and for more than 30 seconds kicked and punched and swung billy clubs, brutalizing, torturing and dehumanizing the…

I made “If 5-0 Shoots…” because I wanted to show my support for and solidarity with Sean Bell, his friends, family and the millions of people around the world who believe in social justice. The murder of Sean Bell and the acquittal of the three police officers indicted for it were unjust. I was upset…

Music reflects a people’s political, social and cultural life, so it is no surprise that “We Shall Overcome” conveys the optimism and determination of the Civil Rights era, and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin On?” conveys the disillusionment of the post-Civil Rights era. Similarly, it is no surprise that since Barack Obama has opened a new…

By this time of year, most students have ended their semester of fretting about whether they will or will not be accepted to this or that college. They have spent the past few months greeting the mailbox with a mixture of fear and hope. Those who received disappointing responses may now be joining the ranks…

We often hear calls for more black people to get college degrees, out of an assumption that it is becoming all but impossible to enjoy a middle-class existence without a B.A. This counsel is not as wise as it sounds. The idea of four years of college as a “normal” experience in America took hold…

I know that everyone is saying, “Congratulations.” We say it because we are proud of you and what you have accomplished. I want to say something else; something that others may not say. “I am sorry.”We have a lot of reasons to apologize.We have taught you to think of education as a program, formula or…

I can still see the faces of some of the men and women in the United States armed forces serving in Iraq. Some were smiling, some grimacing, most stared with piercing eyes from behind black shades. Many were hues of brown, most were white. They all deserve to be remembered. It was October 2003. I…

A little more than two years ago, I was in the fourth month of a 6½-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). The Roosevelt is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with the sole mission of dropping bombs on enemy targets. We were somewhere off the coast of Iraq; we…

I belong to a local parenting “listserv,” where moms and dads share information on everything from breastfeeding and circumcision to tantrums and teething. Over the past few weeks, there’s been a persistent topic of both curiosity and debate roiling through our group’s e-mails: vaccine slowdown. Vaccine slowdown, or spreading out the number of shots given…

In Brooklyn-based artist Dave McKenzie’s tantalizing first solo show “Screen Doors on Submarines,” our conversation about race spins and spins like a broken record, our thinking trapped in cycles and rituals like a buggy program stuck in a loop. The work on display at downtown Los Angeles’ REDCAT gallery through June 15 doesn’t necessarily show…