Mel Reeves

There is no doubt that this grieving mother, Marsha Mayes, did not do this on her own. And even if these are her thoughts she wouldn’t think to call a press conference to proclaim them.

People in Chicago were right to continue the protest during Black Friday over the killing of LaQuan McDonald by Chicago police. And it’s not much of an exaggeration to call it what it looks like: an execution, one that was covered up by the system.

In a strange twist of events, elected officials and some Black folks that the Minneapolis power structure have appointed as the leaders of the Black community, turned their focus away from the effort to get justice for Jamar Clark and called a press conference to beat up on, brow beat and talk down to the community, a community trying to bring attention to their cause the best way they know how, by occupying the Fourth Precinct.

The broken record that is police violence that sometimes leaves someone dead has reached a crescendo in Minneapolis with the police shooting and killing of 24-year-old Jamar Clark.

There are so many things to take from the violent handling of an apparently disobedient South Carolina teen, including the problem of police in public schools, criminalizing school misbehavior (as is the case in the odd sounding South Carolina statute “disturbing schools”), and the insensitivity of many American adults who somehow think that the cop’s violent actions were appropriate or justified.

Seeing that many Black folks in one place was good for the soul! That, alone, was reason to be there. When you are Black in America it’s hard to just “be.”

In a scene reminiscent of the U.S. government negotiating a treaty with an Indian nation (which they had no intention on keeping), Homeland Security set up a community meeting in Minneapolis on Tuesday, September 15 with Somali community members in which every representative of Homeland Security — the police, the TSA — had a pistol on their hip.

Somebody should whisper to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (the son of Indian immigrants), Senator Ted Cruz (who was born in Canada), and Ben Carson, an African American descendant of slaves, that without birthright citizenship they would not be citizens.

Straight Outta Compton is as American as you can get. It’s a rags-to-riches story, a story of going from ghetto to ghetto fabulous to, in some cases, fabulously rich. It’s also a very realistic chronicle of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

“Rot in Hell” read one sign at the recent protest at the dental clinic of Walter Palmer the now infamous lion killer. Talk about twisted priorities, there are all kinds of human tragedies occurring and the killing of a lion is front page news.

The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state grounds is a little progress, and proof yet again that protest does indeed work.

My brothers and sisters at Emmanuel AME in Charlotte are gentle and loving souls, but they also represent the weakness of a Black community that — though its very survival has been tenuous since it arrived on American soil and is constantly under attack — does not prepare itself to deal with the war that is being waged against it.

They lied about “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”

Somebody help me understand this paradox all over the country: The mainstream big business press has run headlines saying in effect, “Blacks lied; Mike Brown didn’t have his hands up and didn’t say don’t shoot.” But then they spend time in their articles admitting that racism does exist.

Unlike King, who can smoothly be folded into an American narrative, if you cut and paste from his seemingly more innocuous statements and speeches, Malcolm X cannot be so easily pasteurized.

Since the Occupy movement began with the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, there have been questions about the movement’s purpose. But the questioners are a bit disingenuous, because it is obvious that the primary reason young people are camping out all over the country — including downtown  Minneapolis — is because they are […]

We lost something last week, someone really great. We won’t be able to go to the store and replace what he gave to the world. While the loss of Steve Jobs was a blow, someone will quickly replace his ingenuity. But people like Fred Shuttlesworth cannot be replaced. Shuttlesworth never totally got his due as […]

”I am innocent,” Troy Davis said moments before he was executed Wednesday night. ”All I can ask…is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight.” Davis did not die alone last week. He had the […]