police violence
Nonviolent crisis response in my city
I wish Durham’s HEART program had existed when my friend Joe was killed.
Tyre Nichols’s killing is not an exception
Police violence against Black citizens is written into the script of American culture.
What kind of justice did Derek Chauvin’s trial achieve?
The verdict of a court is not the final verdict of a society.
Police shouldn’t be the first responders for mental health crises
When they are, the result can be deadly.
Why didn’t the police show any empathy for Daniel Prude?
Jesus, too, encountered a naked man living with mental torment. He responded quite differently.
Reenvisioning safety at a Black Youth Project 100 rally
Who keeps us safe? the crowd cried out. We keep us safe!
The urgent need for deep changes in American policing
Are the police meant to protect people? Or to fight them?
The additional violence of George Floyd’s autopsy report
It’s getting harder to believe in the vindication of history.
The killing of George Floyd and the meaning of kneeling
When we see a white police officer kneeling on a black body, squeezing the breath of life out of that body, we are witnessing an act of worship.
How do we remember people killed by police?
Call their names. Tell their stories. Confess our role.
The ghosts and the not-yet-dead
Jesmyn Ward’s novel is a descent into hell on earth. I couldn't put it down.
by David Crowe
Trump's "law and order" is about neither one
Impunity for Joe Arpaio makes good policing harder. So does access to military gear.
The myth of white innocence in Detroit
Kathryn Bigelow's film lays bare our assumptions about guilt and race.
Michael Eric Dyson takes white America to church
Dyson’s sermon on racism is inspiring, but will it speak to those who need to hear it most?
Building Baltimore: A coalition connects police and community
Every win in our organization's history has come when a diverse group of Baltimoreans got out of their lanes and worked together.
Police encounters
We are confronting a reality that for some of us was just an abstraction: black and white communities perceive the police differently and are treated differently by them.
The body we await and the body we are
Like Simeon and Anna, I had a rough Advent.
Don't shoot
For black Americans, the abuse of power by police is not an aberration. It’s a familiar pattern.
Recommended Ferguson reading
These are wise words from Chris Rock, words that bring to mind the point often made by Ta-Nehisi Coates, among others: that while race may be a construct, this doesn’t change the all-too-clear reality of racism.
Native Son
In the last six weeks police officers have killed at least five unarmed African American men: Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, and Michael Brown. This does not include Kajieme Powell, who was carrying a steak knife when two officers gunned him down just a few miles away from the site of Brown’s death. As much as some commentators might want to dismiss the protests as the cynical work of “screamers” and “race hustlers,” there is no doubt that the unrest sprung in large part from a righteous indignation at this nation’s long and persistent record of state violence against black men.