I talked to the mothers of Sandra Bland and Dondre Hamilton about their support for Hillary Clinton and black voter engagement 

Loretta Lynch had to wait 166 days to be confirmed as the next Attorney General, longer than any nominee for this position and longer than the last seven Attorney General nominees combined, but why?

While we are unable to ascertain if there are racist underpinnings in the long delay Ms. Lynch has suffered, it does not mean we cannot use Ms. Lynch's case to understand the role of race and gender in the modern Senate more broadly.

In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin expiates about American society, writing presciently that it is "a civilization sexually so pathetic that the white man's masculinity depends on a denial of the masculinity of the blacks." As always, Baldwin's writing is relevant for understanding contemporary society and the persistence of American racism and provides some explanation for the marginal professional success black gay men experience. However, it would be inappropriate and misleading to label that success as "black gay privilege" as did Dr. John Fitzgerald Gates. As a gay black man, I find fault in many of Dr. Gates' assertions principally because I have never encountered any of the secret spaces that he described where one gains access to a host of privileges. Furthermore, as a sociologist I am troubled by the instances where his claims of "black gay privilege" is not supported by social scientific evidence. 

 I am undoubtedly the biggest Beyoncé fan there is. I live and breathe her music. To me, there is no one greater. That being said, I feel I can say I am disappointed in Bey. At the Grammy’s, she sung “Take My Hand Precious Lord” a gospel classic written by Thomas Dorsey and recently sung by Ledisi for the movie Selma. Ledisi should have sung that song, a song for which she was nominated that night. However, there is a deeper issue at stake and that is how she and other artists can deploy racial symbols without doing the substantive work of protesting.

The 114th Congress officially began on January 6th and it is the most diverse Congress ever.

Here are 5 reasons why the diversity in Congress is not something really to celebrate