I met Marlon Peterson in 2009, a few months after he'd completed ten years of a 12-year sentence for first degree assault and third degree weapons possession. While Marlon was inside, I read his blog and some of the correspondences he'd exchanged with Nadia Lopez's eighth graders. I was amazed not simply by Marlon's… » 2/14/15 1:21pm Yesterday 1:21pm

When I talk about my downtown life as a kid, people ask how old I am. Growing up in New York City in the 70s was more like being an urchin of the 30s than a silver spoon of the 80s. I'm more likely to share recollections with a 70-year old—playing stoop, jumping off the piers—than to wax fondly upon the boy bands,… » 2/07/15 12:22pm 2/07/15 12:22pm

Late last year my cousin went missing. For weeks he was simply just gone. His cell phone was off and any attempt at tracking him was futile. If there were ever a time that I wanted Liam Neeson's character in Taken to be real, this was it. » 1/31/15 3:20pm 1/31/15 3:20pm

Redlands, CA, March 2003 » 1/29/15 12:08pm 1/29/15 12:08pm

Growing up in a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood in Seattle I remember my mother warning my older brother not to be caught running after dark, and, if ever stopped by police, to do whatever they asked—no more and no less. Speak as little as possible, she'd say. Every suggestion was a weak attempt to… » 1/24/15 1:17pm 1/24/15 1:17pm

A pregnant woman I didn't know struck up a conversation with me at a party recently. We chatted amicably about the weather (bad), the Golden Globes (fine) and the food at the party (great) before the conversation turned—inevitably, it felt—towards birth (hers). She told me she was nervous but excited, that she could… » 1/22/15 4:01pm 1/22/15 4:01pm

When a friend introduced me to the work of a theoretical physicist named Dr. Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein, I had no idea what a "theoretical physicist" was. Whatever the work of theoretical physicists, I didn't imagine that there was one in our country who would say to a group of grad students at MIT, "Do not be… » 1/17/15 12:19pm 1/17/15 12:19pm

"Art has to be a kind of confession," James Baldwin said, fifty-four years ago. "If you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too." Baldwin, more than any other American writer, showed us how every sentence contained the… » 1/12/15 12:16am 1/12/15 12:16am

Last week, I attended a screening of Ava DuVernay's Selma about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 voting rights marches of Alabama. » 1/12/15 12:16am 1/12/15 12:16am

Before traveling to Kiev, Ukraine in late October to attend the Molodist International Film Festival with my documentary Mala Mala, which focuses on transgender cultures in Puerto Rico and their fight for civil rights, several close friends and family members pleaded with me not to go. "So, you have a death wish?" a… » 1/12/15 12:15am 1/12/15 12:15am

The internet is a mountain, and if you climb that mountain, waiting for you at the top will be the person with whom you need to make peace. I climbed my mountain and a woman named Justine Sacco was there. » 1/12/15 12:15am 1/12/15 12:15am

My name is Daźay Burnett. I am a 17-year-old senior at Beacon High School. On December 3, 2014, I was arrested, along with about 50 others, for peacefully protesting the Eric Garner decision. » 1/12/15 12:15am 1/12/15 12:15am

I am hardly ever a » 1/12/15 12:14am 1/12/15 12:14am