South Carolina Top Prosecutor Called SC Police Shooting a "Clean Shot"
Cross-posted from TheLoneDissent, the new home of my anti-racist and criminal justice writing.Levar Jones was shot by a (now) former member of the South Carolina Highway Patrol earlier this month. The...
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Staying Optimistic in a World Where Judges Named Robert E. Lee Key, Jr....
A couple of decades ago, before he had made waves by bringing the Equal Justice Initiative to prominence, before he had written transformative books, and before he launched me on my path to public...
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White SC High School Football Team Celebrates Win by Making Monkey Sounds and...
Meet the football team at Academic Magnet High School, a public school near Charleston, South Carolina. As you can see here, they're almost entirely white, with the exception of a single teammate....
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The Brandon Rouse Memorial Scholarship: My Friend's Heart Was So Big That it...
The local television news uttered a foreboding refrain. "When we return, some sad news about a local college football player."At 13, I hadn't experienced much loss. All of my heroes were going to live...
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The Texas Death Penalty Machina Unjustly Screwed a Texas Lawyer
David R. Dow, left. With Franklin. Meet David R. Dow. I've written about him a handful of times on this very site, usually in a space describing laudable educators or men who have motivated me to get...
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The Dominant White Response to Baltimore Shows Why Black Residents are...
Imagine for a moment that a man's neck was almost severed, nearly clean cut in the most painful way possible, while in the custody of the people charged with the duty of protecting and serving....
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Grizzard Goes Steinbeck: Introducing Our 48-State Journey in Search of the...
Note from your author: Over the last three years, I've been blessed to share my experiences and perspectives on this site, on matters of politics, criminal justice, race, poverty, and much more. This...
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Brave Houston Lawyer Fights Injustice, Inspires My Moral Bucket List
A little more than a month ago, vaunted New York Times author David Brooks wrote an introspective piece entitled The Moral Bucket List. In that space, a typically pensive Brooks reflected on the...
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On Redemption and Change: How One Man's Story Inspires the Battle to Change...
In a Columbia office building, one older lawyer discusses and debates the issues of the day with the vigor of a much younger man. You'll have to excuse South Carolina's Tom Turnipseed if it doesn't...
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A Part of My Uncle Died in the Vietnam Jungle: Not All Who Die from War Die...
Not until daybreak on the second day of the battle did a helicopter manage to land and evacuate the few survivors, leaving behind the bodies of most of Supply Column 21.There were 564 dead Viet Cong...
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On Invisibility and Exclusion: Texas Police Enforce White Supremacy at...
A civil rights writer's initial approach to the McKinney pool party fallout presents as much opportunity as it does difficulty. Which way do you go, when there's so much to be go-ed? Is it an...
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Kalief Browder's Life and Death: Our Great American Travesty
Creating a collage of the problems in the American criminal justice system typically requires an artist to cobble together multiple faces and multiple stories. There's the wrongfully accused man who...
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Let's Get One Thing Straight on the McKinney Situation: Police-Caused Harm is...
Walk to your local mall this afternoon and pull a gun on someone around you. It need not be a loaded gun. It need not even be a real gun, capable of killing that human being. It only needs to look in...
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"He Feared For His Life": What McKinney Teaches About the Costs of Inaction...
There are many ways to view racism in 2015, and many of them are far too simplistic and not particularly helpful. The most common view of racism among the uninitiated focuses on hate. "You're racist!...
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I Was the White Tamir Rice; They Let Me Live
I'm often asked by people who pretend to be friends, "Why do you care so much about race? What does it matter to you?" The answer to that is complex, but I always tell that that beyond the obvious...
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"Pray for Charleston" Today, Defend the Honor of White Supremacists Tomorrow
There's an alarming tendency that erupts in my soul each time something happens in which the white community - a community I define as "my friends" - has an opportunity to weigh in on race. I have to...
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Let the Rebel Flag's Removal Be One Promise to Black Folks That We Don't Break
After days of national and public shaming, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has called for the removal of the Confederate Flag from the state house grounds, and reports indicate that the South...
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South Carolina Politicians Hurl Insults at Baltimore and Ferguson, Show They...
My fellow white folks invent new and creative ways to turn every situation about black pain and suffering into a story of white triumph. Such is the case with the response to the slaughter of nine...
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To Honor the Charleston Nine, Kill the Death Penalty, Not Dylann Roof
In the coming days, there will be debate over whether Dylann Roof should be put to death. I will argue, and will write, that he should not.Some may argue that the best way to honor the Charleston Nine...
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In One Image, Clemson University Captures White Tone-Deafness And Just How...
Let's say for a minute that you're Clemson University. Let's also say that over the last year, your campus has been engaged in a debate on what to do with your most famous building, which remains named...
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Mt. Zion AME Church in Greeleyville, SC is Currently on Fire
The Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina is in the process of burning to the ground. Cody Alcorn of Fox Carolina reported the news through his Facebook page,...
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In One Image, a Picture of How Wrong We Get it on Mental Illness and Criminal...
Knowing where to start with a critique on the modern American criminal justice system is hard. Do we discuss the mass jailing of children, many of whom have committed little more than a childhood...
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4 Absurd Things in the Republican Debate that were Perfectly Republican
So, a thing happened. A colorful clown car descended upon Cleveland and released ten people who want to run the free world. They talked for a while both to us and at us. Hilarity ensued, but it's less...
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Houston Police Officer's Killing is not an Indictment of BlackLivesMatter; It...
Harris County sheriff's deputy Darren Goforth was killed last week. All indications suggest that the gunman approached the uniformed officer and fired on him without provocation, at least in that...
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Dangerously Stupid Columbia, SC Sheriff Leon Lott Should Stop Using Words...
Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County, South Carolina is a dangerously stupid man who says terrible and insidious things regularly. This week, he said that his office is "declaring war on gangs." He...
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South Carolina Police Chief Gets One Year of Home Detention for Murdering...
How much does the life of a black dad matter in Eutawville, South Carolina? Kill one, and you might just get grounded for a few months. A small-town South Carolina police chief who killed an unarmed...
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Shaun King Writes Diary, Over-Sensitive White Kossacks Freak Out
Shaun King wrote a diary about yet another study that suggests the deep, embedded nature of racial bias in America. That piece by King focuses on a report from Mother Jones, which is itself a report...
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Tennis Star James Blake Tackled Outside his Midtown Hotel by NYC Police, and...
We've heard it time and again, the call of folks who just don't seem to get it. "We don't have a race problem," these well-meaning folks will say. "We have an economic problem."These people argue that...
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Houston Bar Discriminates Against Blacks, Lawyer Tim Sutherland Lies, Says...
Houston nightclub Gaslamp got caught doing what many bars in Houston and other cities do - discriminating against black people, brown people, and other minority people through covert front door...
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A South Carolina Cop Brutally Manhandles Young Black Girl and No One...
Peruse the South Carolina Code of Laws, current through the 2014 legislative session. Scroll down to Title 16, Chapter 3, and you'll see an important heading - Offenses Against the Person. This is the...
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The Dominant White Response to Missouri Shows Why Black Students are...
Imagine for a moment that you’re a black student at the University of Missouri, lodged deep in the heart of Middle America at a university where you are treated more like a renter or interloper than as...
View ArticleFor White America, Black Protesters Never Do it Right
In the wake of protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, the prevailing refrain from White America was consistent. While especially contemptible cretins described protesters as animals and used...
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Texas Court Screwed David Dow So It Could Work With Death Penalty Lawyers Who...
Earlier this year, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—the highest criminal court in the state—issued an unprecedented sanction against experienced and respected death penalty lawyer David Dow....
View ArticleDonald Trump Had Police Remove a Clemson Professor in Muslim Headdress from...
Donald Trump spoke in Clemson, South Carolina yesterday. People piled into the Garrison Arena, a place where the local livestock shows typically take place. They were there to hear his normal message...
View ArticleLet's Not Twist It. My Differences with Scalia Were More Than "Political"
I opened a giant wooden door that separated the West Courtroom of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from the bare hallway that connected the room to the fresh outside air. A small man with a patchy...
View ArticleRepublican Senators Embrace the Legacy of Racist Strom Thurmond When They...
John Oliver released this week a video that lived up to his consistently funny and incisive reputation. It accused Republican senators of “making shit up.” His video smartly derided the legislators for...
View ArticleWhat the Trump Protest Punch Reveals About the Role of Police in Protecting...
A Man walked into the rally of a prominent American politician. Disagreeing with that politician’s rhetoric, the Man staged a silent protest. Less than five minutes into his protest, he was spotted and...
View ArticleI'm Backing Hillary Because I Hate Simple and Shallow Caricatures
It happens every so often. I post something brash onto some social media platform only to elicit the rancor of a friend who doesn’t quite get me. Sometimes it’s a conservative friend, anxious to know...
View ArticleStop. Rachel Maddow is Not "Basically Fox News," and Dozens of Good Democrats...
This week, I wrote a well-received diary about how the shallow caricatures of Hillary Clinton had given me pause, and in fact, caused me to better investigate her core. The thesis, in short, was that...
View ArticleDonald Trump is the Ray Rice Video of the Republican Party
I want to take you back a couple of years. An NFL running back named Ray Rice was accused of hitting his then-fiance in an elevator of an Atlantic City casino. The first reports called it a minor...
View Article"Clemson Family?" Hardly. Students Arrested For Protesting University's...
Let me square with you real quick. You spend enough time around Clemson—as I have—and you’ll be treated to a barrage of hokey platitudes. “Clemson’s different,” we heard at Orientation when i stepped...
View ArticleBernie Sanders Has Received More Free Passes Than Barry Bonds
By the end of his incredible career, Barry Bonds was a three-true-outcomes player. To those of us in the baseball world, that means he rarely hit a ball in play that was touched by a fielder. Most...
View ArticleThe Black Life of Ernest Russell Wasn't Worth a Single Damn in Darlington,...
Officers with the Drug Enforcement Unit of Darlington County killed Ernest Russell, Jr. in October of 2011. His life wasn’t worth a single damn then, and it’s not worth a single damn now. Last year, at...
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On Sheriff Wayne Byrd, Murdering Darlington, South Carolina Citizens, and...
In October of 2011, members of the Darlington Drug Enforcement unit—a group supervised by Darlington County Sheriff Wayne Byrd—busted into the residence of Ernest “Boy” Russell, Jr. and killed him...
View ArticleIndividual Police Shootings are the Tip of the Spear. White America Must...
It’s an inevitable consequence every time a cop puts metal to primer and fires down on an unarmed black man. We hear the justifications for what we just watched. We learn that Michael Brown did that or...
View ArticleMy Friend Brian Mance Needs Your Help. Let Me Tell You What Kind of Guy He's...
There’s something that happens when you write honestly enough about race that some of the black people in your orbit start to take notice. The question comes to me often after some discussion about my...
View ArticleDabo Swinney and the Erasure of Black Christianity
I went to Clemson. Dabo Swinney coaches football players at Clemson. Dabo Swinney had an opinion, and it was unfortunate. The national media machine has put Swinney through the ringer, rightly. Bomani...
View ArticleWhen a Riot in Charlotte is an Act of Collective Self-Defense
Don’t call it a riot, I said, my voice shaking a little at the besieged indifference in the ugly fellow’s voice. I’d sat at a poker table with him for about 14 minutes before I discovered his...
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A Hoodlum, a Hero, and Jordan Edwards
With the single blast of a lawman’s rifle, the short and unfulfilled life of Jordan Edwards ended. No more games. No more proms. Not another group text or A- or football practice. He was just 15 years...
View ArticleYou're Damn Right We're Coming For Your History
And your heritage. And your legacy. We’re not stopping at your statue-sized Civil War Participation Trophies, either. The legacy of the Old South lingers in every oozing orifice of this country. It’s...
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