culture
-
#Every28Hours Author Answers Fact-Checkers
For two years after I wrote “Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killings of 313 Black People by Police, Security Guards and Vigilantes,” major news media paid no attention to it. Until now. Why now? Because the report generated the hashtag #every28hours. And the national uprising against police terror has launched a…
-
Chicago Activists Push for Reparations for Victims of Police Torture
Activists held a rally today at Daley Plaza in Chicago calling for reparations for the torture victims of former Chicago Police Chief Jon Burge, according to eNews Park Forest. The rally included members of Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, We Charge Genocide, Black Youth Project 100, SuperGroup, Chicago Light Brigade, Project NIA and Amnesty International. For 20…
-
Change Agents of 2014: Black Women on Social Media
When herstory reflects on the year 2014, the many ways in which black women used their social media influence to address pivotal issues will be front and center. In the tradition of iconic feminist scholar Audre Lorde, the year 2014 found black women positioning self-preservation as an act of political warfare on both individual and…
-
Calif. High School Basketball Team Banned From Tournament for ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Shirts
Members of the Mendocino High School girls’ basketball team in California are organizing on Monday after being banned from a tournament because of their insistence on wearing “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts in solidarity with Eric Garner, the New York City man who died in July after police placed him in a choke hold, USA Today reports.…
-
Comedian Hit by Train Denied Disability Benefits
Shortly after auditioning for Saturday Night Live, comedienne Liza Dye fainted while on a New York subway platform and was hit by an oncoming train. The accident, which happened in February, nearly cost Dye her left leg. She spent three months in the hospital and underwent nine surgeries. Now living with her mother in her…
-
Man Shot Dead While Taking Christmas Gifts to His Family
Police are seeking leads on a gunman after a 31-year-old man was shot dead in New York City while delivering Christmas gifts to his family, the New York Daily News reports. Rashaun Nicholson was taking a bag of presents to his wife and four children in a housing complex on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on…
-
Officer Who Called Michael Brown Memorial ‘Trash’ Faces Discipline
A Ferguson, Mo., police spokesman who called the makeshift memorial to Michael Brown “a pile of trash in the middle of the street” has been placed on unpaid leave, according to Yahoo News. According to the Washington Post, the memorial, which included cards, flowers, candles and stuffed animals, was in the middle of Canfield Drive,…
-
Relatives Chases Down Stolen Hearse Carrying Man’s Body
Around 11 a.m. Saturday, a South Los Angeles family was preparing to hold a funeral service for Jonté Lee Reed, 19, at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As the family drove to the church, they received a call from the funeral director telling them that the hearse with Reed’s body had been stolen. According to television station…
-
The Biggest Losers of 2014
Some of us will be welcoming the new year more than others—namely those of us for whom 2014 was a complete bust. It was a very bad year if you couldn’t stop “accidentally” saying racist stuff, if you had the misfortune of being stopped by the police or if you traveled to a country with…
-
The Root Names 2014 the Year of the Protester
“America never loved us. Remember?” Phillip Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders, a youth-fueled civil rights organization formed in response to the 2012 slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, spoke those powerful words Jan. 28 during the 2014 State of the Youth. And the Year of the Protester began. Agnew’s heart-wrenching declaration—equal parts call to…