How to Get Away With Murder and Other Things the Killing of Unarmed Black Teen Trayvon Martin Teaches Us

This post by Max Read appeared originally at gawker.com. If you'd like to follow its embedded links, you may find it there.

If you want to kill someone and get away with it, do it before the NBA All-Star game.

Technology R Us (Whites, That Is)

Hope and Hopelessness

Shuffling around my kitchen this morning before the break of day, I was thinking about a couple of young Black men I spoke with this week. They're different from each other, in different situations, and I suspect they will ultimately reach quite different outcomes. But one thing I picked up from both, though manifesting itself differently in each case, was an undercurrent of hopelessness on some level.

It's Not Just Too Short, Y'all. It's Too Little.

I've been posting on this blog for more than six years now and, as best I can remember, I've never taken on the topic of woman hating as it's been mastered by some Black rappers. But every dawg has his day, they say. And I guess it's about time I should go on record.

I'm not even sure why I didn't do it before, especially since I've been teaching courses on the sociology of gender and sexuality every semester for the past several years. I mean, I always knew women got screwed out of their power somewhere along the line. I was born one and I definitely got the memo. But once I started teaching the topic and realized how cold-blooded and mean-spirited male dominance -- as a system -- is, it would seem that I would have wanted to have my say. Besides, I was never a big fan of the genre to begin with, I guess, though I tried to reserve judgement for a number of reasons.

Esperanza Spalding: Black Gold