My students, most of whom were African American, began to cry. They said, "Professor, they killed Emmett Till, Malcolm X, Dr. King, and those four little girls in Birmingham. They still follow us, harass us, and are still killing us because of our race. Will it ever stop?" I responded, "Only when you make it stop."
When it comes to drug overdose, and most other societal ills, change seems to happen in direct relation to how much the epidemic creeps into white communities and people who "don't look like drug users" demand action.
When I first read and watched the media coverage of Trayvon Martin's death and listened to George Zimmerman's conversation with police dispatchers, I couldn't help thinking that Trayvon Martin was just the latest casualty of the myth of the "juvenile superpredator."
The undervaluing of black lives and race-based hate crimes remain a critical issue. How can a people be truly free if they are dehumanized, and even killed, because of their race, and often without consequence?
View image Recently my son asked about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, the so-called "White Hispanic" as some in the media have labeled him. My...
For the last few weeks, many have commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. However, one must ask, will the media and ordinary citizens be equally passionate about covering the anniversary of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing?
Social justice bloggers across every platform raised serious concerns about our ethics and integrity as Americans. And pretty much everyone missed the point.
His book Shake the World (now available in paperback from Penguin Books), is about people who decided to use their voices and ideas to change and enhance the lives of countless people all over the earth.
Mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, poverty, high unemployment in black communities... Fifty years since King said it, "the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land." And this country still must change.
We do not fulfill Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream by being a people who don't say the N word or officially discriminate on racial terms. Only a culture of genuine solidarity in which we are proactively seeking the shalom of all people, and not just the purity of our nuclear families, is a culture that is living his dream.
From that night forward we decided to not watch as racism took over the planet, but act. That room of LGBTQ activists became a group of anti-hate activists. We stood together. We still stand together, and we will fight together.
The civil rights movement in America is set to abound in prideful reflection, and deservedly so. Yet for all our success along justice's moral arc, it is also a moment for renewed drive and direction.
I dream that African American youth will find a new sense of purpose and engagement that can help them succeed in everything they do.
Please, my fellow conservatives, take the high ground. Be aware that people who don't agree with you are listening, too. Don't just punish. Persuade. And remember that Dr. King believed in the American Dream, too.
No matter how Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries define the N-word -- I have never and will never be a n*gg*r -- although I am very proud to be a black person.
This is not the America that Dr. King dreamed of 50 years ago. We in the faith community will not stand to have compassion criminalized.