As if tasing an 86-year old man is a tonic: a sad update about Albert Chatfield

Remember that horrifying story about 86-year old Albert Chatfield? The unarmed dementia sufferer was tased by a Kingstree, South Carolina police officer last October, after a brief car chase and subsequent verbal exchange. Chatfield’s injuries prompted the attending hospital to put him in a medically-induced coma in order to save his life. Here’s a sad […]

Stephon Clark — Killed for Daring to Be Human

“I feared for my safety and the well-being of my fellow officers.” “I feared for my life.” And in the shooting of Stephon “Zoe” Clark, the officers who shot the unarmed man were “fearing for their safety.” I’ve repeatedly written about how the killings of unarmed people of color by law enforcement personnel are almost […]

Bruno Mars and cultural appropriation, part 2: the bake

The fried-rice-and-chicken-wing-theory of Blackness gets too much shine at times. We’ll dig deeper into that point later. I want to continue my thoughts from earlier today about Bruno Mars and cultural appropriation by asking a silly question: what is Blackness? Also, what credentialed person or process gets to determine someone else’s Blackness? No, this isn’t […]

Bruno Mars and cultural appropriation, part 1: the shake

To the folks who continue to drone that performer Bruno Mars is guilty of cultural appropriation — leave him Alone. Yeah, I always thought Bruno Mars played Cruise Ship Funk — the safe stuff that’s deodorized to a sucralose state of Middle-American acceptamce where listens invoke Peoria-grandma-approved happy faces, trying hard to keep a beat. […]

Remembering Mabel Williams

So that’s when the police came up and they jumped out of the car. And they were saying they were going to take him to jail. And I said, “Do you have a warrant?” And they said — they backed up and they saw me with the shotgun. And, so, I said, “If you don’t […]