Violence Archives

Here’s Ta-Nehisi on Jordan Davis’ shooting, and his killer escaping punishment — for now at least: I wish I had something more to say about the fact that Michael Dunn was not convicted for killing a black boy. Except I said it after George Zimmerman was not convicted of killing a black boy. Except the parents of black boys Read More

This is what you do to prepare for homecoming: Get your hair done. Get your nails done. Shop for clothes. You arrange your hotel room near campus. What you don’t do, however, is plan to see a dead body.

There’s a tremendous arrogance in the idea that someone who doesn’t have to navigate these dangers every day cares more about them than the people who live in their edgeless shadows.

TNC mulls Kendrick Lamar‘s latest over at the NYT: I must confess my bias. I grew up in Baltimore during a time when the city was in the thrall of crack and Saturday night specials. I’ve spent most of my life in neighborhoods suffering their disproportionate share of gun violence. In each of these places Read More

I had a mostly unremarkable, short career in football—yet that was still more than enough time for the game to leave its mark, all over my body. I had been dealing with arthritis, joint stiffness, and backaches for years when a weight-room mishap drove me to an emergency clinic in the summer of 2010, when I was 32. Several follow-up appointments ended with me in an MRI machine and an appointment with a neurosurgeon.

French postcards from 1910 imagining the year 2000. Sarah Palin wants to go to Sudan for some reason. “…why should Sudan have any interest in hosting Palin? Even if the country weren’t in such a delicate state, what would be the point or purpose of any photo-op with Ann Curry? What interest could the Southern Read More

Over at The Root, Byron Hurt has a candid piece about how watching the fraught interaction between his parents as a kid helped plant the seeds for his adult embrace of feminism:

Feminist writings about patriarchy, racism, capitalism and structural sexism resonated with me because I had witnessed firsthand the kind of male dominance they challenged. I saw it as a child in my home and perpetuated it as an adult. Their analysis of male culture and male behavior helped me put my father’s patriarchy into a much larger social context, and also helped me understand myself better.

You’ll have to forgive me for how jumbled/discursive/TMI this is going to read, but this has agitated a lot of stuff I’ve been thinking about and was frankly saving for a much neater Mother’s Day post.

My own, very flawed feminism is also rooted in my childhood, albeit in circumstances very different from Hurt’s. His father’s presence was inescapable. Mine was imperceptible.

It was only two months ago that the Democrats lost the House and President Obama was looking seriously diminished. But his approval numbers have bounced back — he goes into tonight’s State of the Union address around 50 percent in a bunch of major polls —-  presenting Republicans with some interesting dilemmas in deciding how Read More

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