Below are a number of links to shorter pieces on African Americans, social justice, and American culture for your enjoyment. Please note that some of these are unpublished drafts. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms on these pieces and in general, please feel free to contact me by leaving comments below or by email.

On Being An Unspecial American

Smoke and Mirrors of the American Dream

Metro Needs More Money (published in the Washington Post’s Outlook section, June 15, 2003)

Rules to Live By (published in Radical Society, April 2003)

Ivory Tower & Scholar Activism (published in Academe Magazine, Sept/Oct 2005)

Teachers College Record Book Review (published in Teachers College Record, March 2006)

Shouting “Race” in a Crowded Theater (unpublished, originally written March 2006; updated June 2007)

Laying the Groundwork: The Constant Gardening of Community/University/School Partnerships for Postsecondary Access and Success (published in the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, Vol. 8, October 2009)

K-12 Education Reform and Unlearned Lessons From Magnet Schools (published in Teachers College Record, February 15, 2013)

Universities That Seek to Maximize Profits Often Minimize Students’ Education (published in The Guardian, February 19, 2015)

Freddie Gray: Don’t let the 1% determine police reform for the 99% (published in The Guardian US, May 1, 2015)

If AP US History Is Wrong, It Shouldn’t Go Right (published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 11, 2015)

3 Things HBCUs Could Do to Survive and Succeed (published in Academe Magazine, Sept/Oct 2015)

The Token Commitment (published in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, June 2, 2016)

Affirmative Whiteness (published in Seven Scribes, July 1, 2016)

Why Making College Free Isn’t Enough For First-Generation Students (published in The Atlantic, September 5, 2016)

At the Intersection of Donald Trump and America’s Delusions of Grandeur: The Narcissism Trump’s Narcissism Unleashed
(published in The Huffington Post, November 17, 2016)

The West’s Obsession With Itself
(published in Al Jazeera English, May 9, 2017)

Have Black Historians Been Wrong All Along? (With American Racism…There Are No Happy Endings)
(published in Al Jazeera English, August 16, 2017)

How Segregated America Made Trump Inevitable
(published in Al Jazeera English, September 12, 2017)

Black History is US History – But Some of My Students Don’t Want to Hear It
(published in The Washington Post (PostEverything), February 7, 2018)

Why American Lives Matter Most
(published in Al Jazeera English, April 8, 2018)

Why I Don’t Understand the Black Affluent Class
(published in Al Jazeera English, July 19, 2018)

I Don’t Understand My Black Middle Class Friends
(published in Medium, July 25, 2018)

On the Racism of Race Conversations
(published in Al Jazeera English, September 28, 2018)

America, Where Altruism By Any Other Name is Narcissism
(published in Medium, February 25, 2019)

How US History is Whitewashed in High School Exams
(published in Al Jazeera English, July 1, 2019)

Racism and Narcissism: America’s Original Sin
(published in Al Jazeera English, August 10, 2019)

America Isn’t Just a Failing State, It Is a Failed Experiment
(published in Al Jazeera English, April 20, 2020)

The Weight and Pressure of American Racism
(published in Al Jazeera English, July 17, 2020)

American Culture Sees Blackness As the Damage It Did to Us, Not the Joy We Take In Ourselves
(published in NBC News THINK, August 9, 2020)

Afropessimism and Its Discontents
(published in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Book Review), August 9, 2020)

Why Race Relations Are an Abusive Fantasy
(published in Al Jazeera English, October 8, 2020)

Crying In Regulation
(published in The Baldwin, October 22, 2020)

In the US, Voter Suppression Will Remain the Norm
(published in Al Jazeera English, November 8, 2020)

The Fake and the Real in American Cancel Culture
(published in Al Jazeera English, March 28, 2021)

The Real “Second Class Citizens” of Academia
(published in Al Jazeera English, April 30, 2021)

Critical Race Theory and the Scam of the Ban
(published in Al Jazeera English, June 27, 2021)

Plantation Slavery, The First American Dream
(published in Al Jazeera English, August 29, 2021)

Nothing Sacred: From Jefferson to Jan. 6, America’s Mythologies Are Destroying Us All
(published in Salon, September 6, 2021)