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Juvenile Fines and Fees Undermine the Entire Notion of Family in Courts Across the U.S.
“His mother works at Giant Food Store and his stepfather works at USPS. He can pay the court costs.” Those were the words I heard a Maryland judge utter as she imposed juvenile court fines and fees on the young black man standing before her. There was no inquiry into his family’s expenses—rent, bills, or…
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No Murder Charges for Georgia Cop Who Fatally Shot Naked Black Man in Mental Health Crisis
I mean, why wouldn’t he be charged with murder? The recent outlier that was Amber Guyger, a white cop who actually was criminally charged and convicted in the shooting death of an unarmed black person, is certainly the exception to the rule, which is that white cops can kill black people in all manner of…
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Help Black Girls Make Magic: 7 Organizations You Can $upport on International Day of the Girl
For black girls and young women of color, it can seem like the deck is perennially stacked against them. A recent study by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality quantified what many of us have intimately experienced: that adults view black girls under 14 as less innocent and more adult than white children of…
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Florida Man Who Killed Black Father Over Parking Space Will Stand His Ground in Prison for 20 Years
The white Floridian who gunned down an unarmed father of three over a parking dispute has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Michael Drejka got the book thrown at him in the 2018 death of Markeis McGlockton, wherein the sentencing judge blasted the 49-year-old, calling him a self-appointed “handicapped parking space monitor.” The AP…
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‘Am I Supposed to Be the Representation?’: A Black Mother Navigates Our Convoluted Mental Health System
Waiting for Tearah, a short documentary about how a black family navigates the labyrinth mental health system in Hartford, Conn., is symbolic of mental health dysfunction on a national level—and a testament to the beauty, innovation, and the sheer determination and grit of black mothers who walk through walls for their children. The 22-plus-minute film…
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Watch: Waiting for Tearah Spotlights How Our Children Are Languishing in Mental Health Facilities Far From Home
To honor Mental Illness Awareness Week (Oct. 6-12) , Frontline PBS and Firelight Media have partnered with The Root to bring you Waiting for Tearah, a short documentary by Juliana Schatz Preston. Waiting for Tearah tells the story of one African-American family’s struggle to navigate America’s dysfunctional mental healthcare system. Tearah, then 16 years old…
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Google Trolls BET Awards and the Homeless to (Shadily) Get Dark-Skinned Faces for Pixel 4 Technology
Tech behemoth and Big Brother is Watching purveyor Google—through a third party company—dispatched workers to blackety-black events like the 2019 BET Awards in Los Angeles to get darker-skinned faces for a facial recognition database, but often used skeevy and immoral tactics to do so, according to an explosive report by the New York Daily News.…
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Yesterday in Georgia, Women in Prison Regained Some of Their Dignity
On Tuesday, the Georgia Dignity Act (House Bill 345) went into effect in all women’s prison facilities in Georgia, giving more than 3,800 women locked up in the state access to basic necessities like sanitary napkins, as well as affording them the decency of not being chained while pregnant or giving birth. The bipartisan bill,…
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Full Court Press: NBA Forces Every Franchise to Employ Psychologist, Behavioral Health Specialist for 2019-2020 Season
From Kevin Love to Metta World Peace, Dennis Rodman to DeMar DeRozen, players in the National Basketball Association—past and present—have publicly grappled with mental health issues. And that makes perfect sense, as the men of the NBA assuredly are part of the nearly 44 million Americans who have confronted mental illness in any given year.…
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The Water Dancer: Ta-Nehisi Coates Joined Oprah in Conversation at the Apollo—and We Were There
It was an amazingly candid conversation, punctuated with lots of laughter, black-ass intonations, and responses from the crowd. “I love a talking back audience,” Oprah said, as she and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates presented a salon of sorts at the venerable Apollo Theater last week. The packed audience (which included this writer) was privy to a…
