On Monday night, Minneapolis witnessed a lynching. A white police officer murdered George Floyd, and the video left no doubt of what had happened. It’s not the first time this had happened here, but something about this murder seems to be moving through the city in a different way. Maybe it’s because of a pandemic…
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced on Wednesday that she is looking into reports of unequal enforcement by the New York Police Department of social-distancing requirements due to coronavirus. In a May 8 letter to the police commissioner, James requested department policies and directives for enforcing the social-distancing rules, as well as the…
Ben Faulding is a black black-hat: an African-American Hasidic Jew — and he is proud of his twin identities. But he thinks that he was nearly killed for the color of his skin Wednesday — while buying hair care products at a pharmacy. In a Twitter thread that went viral, having been retweeted over 66,000…
The journalist whose reporting led to Chicago police releasing the gruesome video of Laquan McDonald’s killing faces a new challenge over his sources, the New York Times reported. Jamie Kalven’s 2015 article about the number of times McDonald was shot by police — 16 times — created a firestorm in Chicago, leading to multiple resignations…
*This piece is part of a series about the issues in the 2016 presidential election.** Does Donald Trump have a solid stance on police reform or racial justice? The official “Policies” page on the website for his campaign does not have anything listed related to these issues. While Hillary Clinton’s campaign website includes separate tabs…
In these noxious political times, it’s worth revisiting the words of Israeli philosopher Martin Buber, who warned against the objectification of human beings. He writes in his classical work I and Thou that people are not, “dot[s] in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition to be experienced and described, a loose…
In recent weeks, America’s racial wounds have been torn open, an uneasy rhythm of violence playing out in the streets and on social media: African-Americans shot dead on camera by police, protests rolling through cities and police killed in apparent retaliatory shootings. Like many African American congregations, members of the century-old black Hebrew Israelite movement…
“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel; it is St. Paul, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was gunned down while reaching for his ID. It is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling was shot at point-blank range, already immobilized and…
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