I live in Memphis, so summertime makes me think of heat. Hot heat. Sticky heat. Unrelenting heat. Oppressive heat. The kind of heat that you can’t escape and you can’t recover from, despite the fact that you spend most of your time between May and September mad-dashing from one air-conditioned place to another air-conditioned place….
Read MoreExactly one year ago this month, I attended and photographed my first #BlackLivesMatter event and this image (left) has not left my mind since. This is a photograph of a student at my University. Christian Brothers University, who on that day (December 9, 2014) participated in an event called #WalkOutToChalkOut. Students that day on our campus walked…
Read MoreTonight, on Facebook and Twitter, I posted that I was “praying” for Minneapolis, for Chicago, for #BlackLivesMatters, for refugees fleeing violence and seeking safety and, more generically, for anyone and everyone who loves justice, defends and protects the most vulnerable among us, who is under assault, in danger and in need of not only our supportive solidarity, but our active advocacy. This was…
Read MoreThis is the second installment of my Reading Coates posts, offering some reflections on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me in light of our summer reading group’s discussion of the same. You can read Part 1 here. Before I jump right into Chapter 2, I want to take a moment to comment upon what I…
Read MoreThere are certain works of art in every medium– literature, theater, photography, sculpture, film, painting, music, et al.– that somehow manage, through an impossible-to-determinately-calculate alchemical combination of human creativity, the raw materials of Nature, and some other mysterious thing we might generically point toward and say “meaning” or “truth,” to reach beyond the mere representation…
Read MoreThis is just a short post motivated by my #BlackLivesMatter Reading Group session yesterday, where we discussed Albert Samaha‘s excellent essay “Indefensible: The Story of New Orleans’ Public Defenders.” I thought I was long past being shocked by anything
Read MoreI organized a reading/discussion group for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me a few weeks ago and thought I’d post a few thoughts here as we go along. By way of context, I’ll note that our group is small (8-10 people) and we’re a mixed bunch of (mostly, but not exclusively) academics– from Philosophy, History, Africana…
Read MoreThe disappearance of citizens displays a perversely cruel and absolute sovereignty. —Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (2002) I should begin by noting that I started writing what follows last week, after the publication of the New York Times story on the “1.5 Million Missing Black Men in America” but before the popular uprising in Baltimore that began Monday as…
Read MoreThe disappearance of citizens displays a perversely cruel and absolute sovereignty. —Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (2002) I should begin by noting that I started writing what follows last week, after the publication of the New York Times story on the “1.5 Million Missing Black Men in America” but before the popular uprising in Baltimore that began Monday as…
Read MoreThe disappearance of citizens displays a perversely cruel and absolute sovereignty. —Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (2002) I should begin by noting that I started writing what follows last week, after the publication of the New York Times story on the “1.5 Million Missing Black Men in America” but before the popular uprising in Baltimore that began Monday as…
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