your take
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Here’s Why Trump’s Rhetoric Is Dangerous for Black People
In a so-called listening session last week to kick off Black History Month, some African Americans surrounded President Donald Trump at the White House, including former Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault and GOP political commentator Paris Dennard. Peppered with numerous racial missteps and misplaced critiques of the press, Trump’s breakfast-meeting remarks included an acknowledgment of Dr.…
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Donald Trump’s Empathy Chip Is Missing, and That’s a Problem
There’s a multitude of reasons that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president: He has zero foreign policy experience; he has repeatedly been accused of sexual assault; he has countless failed businesses and questionable business practices, and the temperament of an indignant 8-year-old. The list is endless. But for me, the reason is much…
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Using Genetic Testing to Better Understand the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
The recent opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture is part of a long and slow national reckoning on race, but some chapters on race are still missing from our nation’s history. Documenting that history may be aided by a project recently launched by the direct-to-consumer genetics-testing company 23andMe. Our…
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#WeBuiltThis: Black People Built America, and America Won’t Stop Killing Us
If you’re black, enfranchised and under 35, you’ve probably caught hell from at least a dozen people about your civic duty to vote. (Something about your ancestors bleeding and dying for your right to vote, and how folks your age should be galloping to the polls. It’s like your civic duty to stand for the…
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Hey, Donald Trump, Here's How to Win the Black Vote in 3 Easy Steps
Donald Trump, thank you for thinking about us in the black community so much over the past few weeks. It means a lot to know we’ve got a true winner fighting for us on the road to the White House. But listen: You’ve stumbled a few times before, so I want to make sure you’re…
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Dear Mike: Another Year Has Passed and We’re Still Fighting for You
I started my time at Advancement Project one year ago. My first big assignment came only three weeks after my first day: I was being sent to Ferguson, Mo. As the leader for our youth-criminalization work, I would manage the national media and communications efforts for the one-year commemoration of Mike Brown’s death. I hadn’t…
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Shaping Conversations Around What #SafetyIs in Black Communities
Throughout the summer, new hashtags representing the names of black and brown people who have lost their lives to police violence have flooded our social media feeds. #KorrynGaines, #PhilandoCastile, #AltonSterling and hundreds more people’s lives have been tragically cut short at the hands of police. This week, on Tuesday, communities came together under a different hashtag,…
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This Election, Let’s Refocus on the Pillar Issues
As citizens, we deserve election seasons that are seesawing, back-and-forth spectacles of clashing ideas. Instead we find ourselves often immersed in the frantic pace of the horse race. Campaigns devolve into poll-watching parades, focused more on opposing personalities than on issues of great consequence. Issues get lost. This is one of those elections. The general…
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#FreedomNow: Why We Must Disinvest From the Fraternal Order of Police
Last week, young black organizers across the country took to the streets to demand that the U.S. government, unions and police officers divest from the Fraternal Order of Police and declare #FreedomNow. We know that police unions can overwhelmingly further a culture of toxic policing that protects, pays and exonerates killer cops. What we may…