The FBI Reported More Than 6,000 Hate Crimes Last Year. Here’s Why It’s Probably A Whole Lot More.
Richard Ellis/Zuma An FBI report released earlier this week claims that hate crimes increased 4.6 percent in 2016 over the previous year, from 5,850 in 2015 to 6,121 last year. Mainstream media outlets widely reported on these statistics (see here and here), with several outlets calling out a specific spike in hate crimes around Election Day and reporting the…
Black Americans Have Our Own National Anthem. Stand Up and Sing It With Us.
James Weldon Johnson.Mother Jones illustration; National Archives and Records Administration; Jose Luis Magana/AP; Jane Kelly/Getty On a cloudy day in May 2015, several hundred Howard University seniors, myself included, filed into the school’s main quadrangle for commencement, a ceremony that kicked off with “The Star Spangled Banner.” I can’t honestly recall whether my fellow black students…
Ed Gillespie Just Gave a Speech to the NAACP. It Sounded Nothing Like His Real Campaign.
Steve Helber/AP Something was missing when Ed Gillespie spoke to members of the Virginia NAACP Saturday in Richmond. Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor, talked about education and jobs and the “school-to-prison pipeline.” He talked about second-chances for convicted felons and sentencing reform. He emphasized how eager he was to work with black leaders if…