Lucia McBath: There had to be some thought of race The mother of Jordan Davis, Lucia McBath talks about about the Michael Dunn trial and how she is fighting for gun law reform as the national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

Cop Breaks Leg of 10-Year-Old Who Filmed Him - The Root

In a lawsuit filed in New York City, Krystle Silvera claims that she was sexually assaulted and her son Courtney’s leg was broken after police knocked on her door looking for her ex-boyfriend. 



Cop Breaks Leg of 10-Year-Old Who Filmed Him - The Root

Did White Male Insecurity Kill Jordan Davis? - The Root

For angry white men like Dunn, Jordan Davis’ “gangsta rap” music and Trayvon Martin’s “hoodie” symbolize a larger culture war in which putatively wholesome American culture is under siege by blackness. “Stand your ground” laws, Dunn believes, give Americans the right to defend themselves against “the denigration of women” and “the violence and lifestyle that the ‘gangsta rap’ music and the ‘thug life’ ” adopted by “an entire generation” of “young black men.”

Awaiting trial, Dunn wrote several letters to his family and friends complaining about how “jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs.” In a letter to his daughter, he offered the following solution to the problem of  black thuggery: “This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these f--king idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

Threatened by growing black economic and political power in the early 20th century, white men calling themselves the Ku Klux Klan used this same portrayal of black men as violent, sexual predators to justify racial terrorism. It’s estimated that from 1880 to 1930, more than2,400 African Americans were lynched, often for insulting white men or forgetting “their place.” For contemporary angry white men, standing up to “gangsta rap” and “thugs” is akin to night-riding on black men, as portrayed in D.W. Griffith’s classic 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.

Although economic downturns disproportionately affect black unemployment and home ownership, working-class and college-educated whites are now feeling the sting of restricted opportunity. In his book Angry White Men, sociologist Michael Kimmel describes how these men often blame the trifecta of feminism, affirmative action and immigration for their woes.

The relative devaluing of white privilege has been interpreted as racial oppression of whites and “reverse discrimination.” Opinion polls (pdf) suggest that half of all white Americans now see themselves as the targets of racism, and that number pushes past 60 percent among self-identified Republicans and among those who watch Fox News.

Did White Male Insecurity Kill Jordan Davis? - The Root

World's Most Wanted Drug Kingpin Arrested

Police Brutality Backfires (Original)

Federal Government OKs Banks Taking Marijuana Money

"The Treasury Department “seeks to move from the shadows the historically covert financial operations of marijuana businesses.”

Prosecutors: Fla. teen’s slaying was premeditated | theGrio

"Grand jury indicts man in Jordan Davis shooting on first degree murder charge; faces life in prisonJordan Davis case: Opening statements in trial over loud music deathJordan Davis case has echoes of George Zimmerman trialIs Jordan Davis another Trayvon Martin?Jordan Davis’ shooter writes ‘shockingly racist’ letters from jail

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A state forensic analyst says a Florida man charged with killing a teen over loud musicwould have had to remove his gun from a holster and then load it just before the shooting."

Film Based On A Palestinian Girl's Life Stirs Controversy : NPR

Film Based On A Palestinian Girl's Life Stirs Controversy : NPR

Proud To Be Indigenous American

An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow - NYTimes.com

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.



An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow - NYTimes.com