Black Lives Matter

A father of one was shot and killed by police officers outside of Atlanta when they tried to serve him an arrest warrant. Nicholas Taft Thomas, 25, was at his job at the Goodyear store when a total of six officers from Smyrna and Cobb County approached him to serve a felony arrest warrant. Witnesses claim […]

Taking a page from the FBI’s COINTELPRO program of the 1960s, “intelligence analysts” from Mall of America in Bloomington, Minneapolis set up a fake Facebook account to identify and monitor local Black Lives Matter activists, who were later arrested and charged for a holiday protest at the mega mall, according to The Intercept. The Intercept’s investigation revealed […]

Black lives do, indeed, matter. And this Saturday, Black Lives Matter — an international movement fighting to end state-sanctioned violence against Black communities throughout the world — is partnering with The 24 Hour Project to document the every-day lives of Black people in multiple cities during one single day. This year’s theme is ‘The Human Condition’ […]

I’m no longer certain what’s more taxing: Having to write about yet another unarmed Black person experiencing excessive, brutal force from law enforcement, or having to note that Black man or woman doesn’t have to be pristine to have their humanity respected. Or to have their untimely death be any less tragic or significant because […]

Because it is a social construct, race can often be a complicated matter. However, racism – notably, as it works in America – is a much easier issue to comprehend. If you don’t appear White, you are classified as “other,” making you susceptible to every form of prejudice associated with otherness. If you do not […]

Update, Sunday, March 8, 2015, 3:30pm ET:  The name of the officer who shot and killed 19-year-old Tony Robinson on Friday night has been released as well as radio dispatch audio which confirm that shots were fired less than 20 seconds after police entered the home where the teen died. The officer who shot and […]

  African-American communities throughout the country have long been plagued by police brutality. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Ezell Ford (pictured) last year reignited a discussion about the relationship between police officials and the communities they serve. In an effort to address the national issue, President Barack Obama created the “Task Force […]

A “Hands Up” walkout of Congressional staffers Thursday on Capitol Hill was only the beginning of what is shaping up to be several days of planned peaceful protest in reaction to how the justice system has handled the killings of unarmed black men and boys by police, including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley and Tamir […]

The movement #BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman was acquitted for his crime, and the slain 17-year old was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. Today the battlefield in the fight for justice has expanded across the nation. We’ve seen protesters marching through the streets changing “Black lives matter,” disrupting […]

For a few weeks now, I and presumably other writers like me, have been asked to brace ourselves for this moment and to have our thoughts ready. These thoughts were mostly centered on this question: “If they decide not to indict Darren Wilson, what do you think should come next?” My answer remains the same: […]