Buffalo Police Department’s 57-member tactical team resigned after the city suspended two officers for shoving 75-year old Martin Gugino to the ground, making him bleed. Good.

Eff them. They didn’t completely leave the force, but they should. I’ll riff off an old Funkadelic song: America eats its old. Peak oppression displays one of its most dangerous inhumane tendencies to the world when institutions begin to publicly abuse children and elders who appear to question authority. The violently-repressive nationwide response by police […]

Time for the obligatory Colin Kaepernick post: y’all should’ve listened to him in 2016

Most Americans, myself included, do not endorse looting in response to injustice. But your preference to discuss looting over racial equity right now misses the point Kap was making nearly four years ago. I’m breaking an editorial rule for this blog by stating what seems to be the most obvious viewpoint that’s been proven by […]

To all White people who say they are not racist — you all are neither innocent, nor safe, from White supremacy

You’re living in White supremacy. What will you do about it? African American George Floyd’s slow death under the seemingly-knowing knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a symbol of White supremacy’s death spell for both America and the freedom this country celebrates. Note that I didn’t say “ … death spell for Black […]

‘You ain’t Black’ Part 3: how Biden can fix the mess he’s made

It’s time for the Presidential hopeful to share and discuss his platform on race — and understand his place in the eyes of the Black electorate. Plus, a rare endorsement from this blog. About four years ago, but without a public endorsement, I categorized the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Presidential race as a question […]

Coronavirus and racism — we keep chasing the hammer that struck us, but never the hand behind it

How can Black, Brown and poor people live long lives in communities not designed for people to live long? I saw this “fight COVID-19 now” vs. “Medicare for all” video on Roland Martin’s Twitter feed (be sure to watch the video): Which explains why I can’t be a politician: every policy question has to be […]

The Biden nomination shows that White supremacy has won. Again.

Even if the reigning White Supremacist in Chief has to drone “I’m the greatest President ever” from his political grave to a hypothetical President-elect Joe Biden in January 2021, White supremacy still wins. I’ll start with the premise my axiom that President Donald Trump is either the iconic leader of the modern White supremacy movement, […]

Coronavirus: more proof Black and poor communities are designed for racist death (and politicians don’t care enough)

ask your political leaders why they donʼt talk about ‘social determinants of health’ to see how much they care … I’ll start by heading off the near-inevitable “What about White people” pushback whenever someone else mentions a unique and more intense version of hell that Black and Brown folks are experiencing. Sure — coronavirus doesn’t […]

Democrat lawmakers agreed with Trump’s wall — 25 percent of the way

There’s a question I meant to raise a few weeks ago about the budget debate in Washington and President Trump’s Great Wall idea. “What would you prefer Congress to fund — $5 billion for border security or $5.7 billion for a border wall?” Yeah. That was a debate. In real life. Sure, I think paying […]

The emerging story of Jussie Smollett

I always tell you that my natural writing style is stream-of-consciousness — an approach I use for capturing my raw feelings about any topic. But that doesn’t mean I’ll write in the absence of cogent facts. You can pretty much figure that out by the number of sources I’ll cite in each post. A dose […]

Empty victory: young Black wrestler’s sacrifice

Reading Frantz Fanon or writers like him can make you easily relate to a dictum that seems to describe unequal societies: when you’re on the losing side, a “W” is an welcomed “W” — until you realize it’s not. I see this dictum in the angering story of Buena Regional High wrestler Andrew Johnson, a […]