Mychal Denzel Smith

Lessons to Learn From Arizona's New Gun Laws

Mychal Denzel Smith on May 2, 2013 - 11:18 AM ET

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer meets with President Obama in 2010. (White House Photo/Pete Souza.)

The United States Senate, as it is wont to do, failed to find enough votes to pass legislation that a majority of Americans support. In this instance, it was for expanded background checks, the one gun control measure that, since the tragic shooting in Newtown, seemed likely to become law. But where there’s a will there’s a way, and our Congress, if nothing is else, wills its way into ineffectiveness with ease.

White People Have to Give Up Racism

Mychal Denzel Smith on February 14, 2013 - 1:40 PM ET

Protesters march in memory of Trayvon Martin. (Frank Reynolds.)

Last week, I argued that a repeal of so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws and the outlawing of racial profiling are necessary but insufficient to prevent murders like that of Trayvon Martin. On Twitter, someone asked me, “What’s your solution?” My short answer: white people have to give up racism.

President Obama Should Go to Chicago. And Yemen. And Pakistan. And ...

Mychal Denzel Smith on February 8, 2013 - 6:26 PM ET

US drone strikes have killed innocent civilians around the world. (AP Photo/Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, US Air Force.)

After the shooting death of Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old honor student who had, just a week before her tragic death, performed along with her high school band in the president’s inauguration ceremonies, the Black Youth Project started a Change.org petition asking President Obama to come to Chicago and address the gun violence plaguing the city. Initially, I read it skeptically. There’s a tendency to want the president to respond to every crisis everywhere, even when his intervention would do little to help. What real impact would a presidential speech or two have in reducing the violence? None that I can see. But that really isn’t the point.

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Why Ending 'Stand Your Ground' Isn't Enough to Prevent Another Trayvon Martin

Mychal Denzel Smith on February 6, 2013 - 5:59 PM ET

Protesters gather at a rally for Trayvon Martin in New York City's Union Square on March 21st, 2013

Yesterday, on what would have been Trayvon Martin’s eighteenth birthday, Representative Frederica Wilson, a Democrat from South Florida, introduced a resolution to honor the slain teen and, according to a statement from her office, urge “the repeal of Stand Your Ground laws, and calling on the United States government to address the crisis of racial profiling.” The statement further reads:

Michelle, Beyoncé and the Fruitless Politics of Respectability

Mychal Denzel Smith on February 5, 2013 - 12:10 PM ET

Beyonce performs during the half-time show of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 3, 2013. Reuters/Mike Segar

As a non-Beyoncé fan, even I have to admit that her halftime show at the Super Bowl was spectacular. It’s a grand stage built for grand performances, and if there was any doubt before this, she left none after that she is indeed the pre-eminent pop star of her generation. But all some people could see was a sex machine.

On the Routine Criminalization of America's Black and Brown Youth

Mychal Denzel Smith on January 31, 2013 - 1:45 PM ET

Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer. (AP Photo/HO, Martin Family Photos.)

On the face of it, the fates that befell 22-year-old Rodrigo Diaz and 7-year-old Wilson Reyes may seem unrelated. A Bronx elementary school student, Reyes was handcuffed and, according to his family, interrogated by police for up to ten hours, because of a playground scuffle over five dollars. Diaz, meanwhile, was shot and killed when he mistakenly pulled into the driveway of Phillip Sailors, a 69-year-old Vietnam veteran, in Lilburn, Georgia.

Let's End All Gun Deaths, Not Just Mass Killings

Mychal Denzel Smith on January 29, 2013 - 2:28 PM ET

Edwina Grant who lost her son to gun violence holds his picture as she demonstrates with CeaseFirePa at a rally in the Pennsylvania Capital building Wednesday, January 23, 2013, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In 1995, Chicago resident Shirley Chambers lost her first child to gun violence. Her 18-year-old son, Carlos, was shot and killed by a 16-year-old high school classmate. Five years later, her 15-year-old daughter, Latoya, was killed by a 13-year-old boy. Only two months after his sister was gunned down, Shirley Chambers’s son Jerome was shot and killed outside of the Cabrini-Green housing projects in which they lived. He was 23-years-old. Jerome’s death left Shirley with one surviving child, Ronnie. “I’d pray for God to protect Ronnie and keep him safe day and night,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times. She was speaking to them on the occasion of Ronnie’s death, shot and killed this past Sunday at the age of 34.

For Black Boys, the NFL—and Traumatic Brain Injury—Can Be Lottery Tickets

Mychal Denzel Smith on January 28, 2013 - 12:20 PM ET

Junior Seau committed suicide after suffering from brain injuries. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa.)

This Sunday, citizens across these United States will indulge in the country’s most cherished pastime: watching large men give each other life-threatening concussions. For about twenty weeks, millions of us sit riveted as players in the NFL collide into one another at breakneck speeds, delivering bone-crushing hits that thrill and excite, and it all concludes on our favorite holiday, Super Bowl Sunday. Buckets of chicken and kegs of beer will be consumed in raucous atmospheres at homes and bars across the land, as we all watch the next generation of Alzheimer’s patients and suicide victims ride on to national glory.