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Hell Houses Have No Place in Christianity
When I was 10, I was forced to give my life to Christ. As a kid, my mother was a devoutly religious woman (she would not even let me dress up for Halloween), so I was shocked when she told me I was going to go to what she called a “Hell House.” I was…
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The Whole Black Church and Me
One of the first sermons I ever preached was titled “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” In it, a very young and naive preacher, emboldened by an atmosphere that allowed impenitent homophobia to go unchecked, uses the language of revulsion to articulate why he believed same-sex relationships were wrong and not in line with…
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White Evangelical Support of Trump Proves They’re More ‘White’ Than ‘Evangelical’
Although I attended a black church my entire life, I was ordained into the Southern Baptist Convention, an organization complicit in the rise of the alt-right and whose troubling racial history and contemporaneous actions revealed a deep commitment to ignoring the influence of white supremacy. Last year, I wrote a piece for the New York…
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Betty Shelby Is Teaching a Class on Surviving Killing an Unarmed Black Man. Here Are 10 Things She'd Be Better At
This week, Betty Shelby, the Tulsa Police Officer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher—and claimed he “caused his own death” by “failing to comply” to her orders—will teach a course to other police officers about “Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident.” Shelby is convinced that other officers will be forced to deal with what…
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Texas Shouldn't Execute Chris Young for Murder Even Though He Is Guilty of the Crime [Updated]
Updated: Monday, July 17, 2018; 3:53 EDT: When I wrote this piece, I was not aware that, according to court records, Chris Young sexually assaulted a woman in front of her three children at gun point the morning before the murder. Gunpoint. Three children. I have no words. That act is evil; the man who did…
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I See My Dad When I Look in the Mirror, and I’m Terrified I’ll Repeat His Mistakes
I was 34 years old when I could no longer escape the man I never wanted to see again. For the past 30 years, the day designated to celebrate men’s investment in their children has not brought me a great deal of joy. In 1988, just two weeks after Father’s Day, my dad was convicted…
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#SayHerName: 100 Years Ago, Mary Turner Was Lynched
Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of a lynching, which some may find triggering. Mary Turner was eight months pregnant when she was lynched on May 19, 1918. It all began, as do many things in America, with a mediocre white man. What happened 100 years ago today has been forgotten by America. Like…
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I’m the Son of an Oklahoma Schoolteacher, and the Way They’re Treated Is a Crime
I was walking home from my friend G’s house when I noticed the bright-orange cutoff notice on the door. We had skipped school that day to play Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, so I was surprised when I looked up from playing “Sonic” to see that it was 3:30 in the afternoon. I hurriedly gathered…
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It’s Easy to Believe Conspiracy Theories When Your Country Conspires Against You
From 1979 to 1981, at least 28 black boys and young adults were murdered in the South. Atlanta Monster is a podcast that explores the disturbing and complicated case of Wayne Williams, the person a jury found guilty of what has come to be known as the “Atlanta Child Murders.” Hosted by Payne Lindsey, a…
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A Very Subjective List of the Black Greek-Letter Organizations Each Black Panther Character Would Have Pledged
Black Panther is the official movie of Black History Month 2018—but after I watched the movie, a nagging question lurked in the back of my mind. I’m a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, and for some reason, I incessantly ask myself which black Greek-letter organization would characters in films and TV shows join. Perhaps it…
