You can read my write up of the Million Hoodie March on The Root.
“We Are All Trayvon!” — Million Hoodie March
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Thoughts On Trayvon Martin
“THESE assholes, they always get away.”
George Zimmerman said this to a 911 dispatcher he had on the phone as he followed a young black man he would later admit to killing in “self-defense.” You can hear the annoyance in his voice in the police tape, the sense that the people paid to protect him are failing his community, the feeling that he — as a criminal justice major and a neighborhood watch volunteer — had to take matters into his own hands.
Who are “they,” “these assholes” that Zimmerman grouses about before he gets out of his SUV and pursues an unarmed 17-year-old boy he describes as acting suspiciously? As potentially being “on drugs” or “something”?
It’s a demographic he mentions repeatedly in the call.
Black.
Male.
“These assholes, they always get away.”
It’s a sentiment — conscious or unconscious — that dwells unchecked in the American psyche. The black man as aggressor. The black man as criminal. It’s a feeling that one can find woven into the facts of many cases similar to Trayvon’s. It’s a feeling that I fear won’t die, as a result of our country’s crippling inability to really discuss race and rationally confront its issues and biases.
The fact that Zimmerman has NOT been charged or arrested (due to Florida’s malignant “Stand Your Ground” Law, which states people have the right to use force against would-be attackers without retreating first) sends a clear message to the black community: your life does not matter. You have no rights. It would hardly be unfair to allow for a thought exercise in which a black Zimmerman would immediately be locked away at the scene of the crime.
“Something’s wrong with him.”
No, Mr. Zimmerman. There is nothing wrong with being black in your neighborhood. There’s nothing wrong with walking with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea back home to watch the rest of the NBA All Star Game. There IS however something wrong with racism and vigilantism. I hope the news of the Department of Justice assembling a Grand Jury to look over the facts of the case means you’ll soon be held accountable for those wrongs.
Articles I’ve read about Trayvon Martin’s murder:
* The Trayvon Martin Murder, Explained: Mother Jones gives a thorough primer on the events as they unfolded on that rainy February day, as well as insight as to why Zimmerman hasn’t been arrested, how Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law came to be and how it has been invoked in the past.
* Why Trayvon Martin’s Murderer Remains Free: Slate explores the history behind Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.
Families Move Into Long Island City (NYT)
Long Island City mother Catalina Villamizar with her three-year-old son Bruno Wartofsky. Uli Seit for The New York Times
SHORTLY after my first New York Times byline on a luxury apartment development in Astoria, I met up with Eric Benaim, president and CEO of Modern Spaces NYC, for a walking tour of Long Island City.
The neighborhood’s proximity to Manhattan and the East River made it a formidable industrial neighborhood in the past, but as factories closed down, singles and couples moved in. Now those same features that made it LIC a great spot for Pepsi-Cola and Chiclets are drawing in young families looking for an easy commute into the city or Brooklyn who want to take advantage of the area’s new waterfront properties and parks, Benaim shared.
I spoke with a number of real estate experts, parents and business owners in the neighborhood and the result is my second (!!!) byline for the New York Times real estate section. Click the link below for the full story.
Nike Launches Its Summer of Innovation…And I Was There!
Steffan Olander, Nike’s VP of digital sport at a recent event launching a new line in Nike+ products.
“HOW cool is your big sister?” I text my brother last Tuesday afternoon. I had found myself at a warehouse near the East River with the world’s top bloggers, camera crews and sneakerheads, as Nike’s top executives and designers showcased the brand’s latest innovations.
I am no sneaker aficionado or tech whiz, but the products on display at the event were awe inspiring in their level of precision, thought and execution. Most of the new shoes, uniforms and padding on display were four years in the making, advancing the developments Nike made for their athletes competing in the Beijing Olympic Games. The brand is already thinking about what will come down the chute for the 2016 Games.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Click the links below to read my reports on two of the products that made their debut at last week: Nike+ Training and Basketball, an iPhone-based training and workout logging app and shoe, and Nike Flyknit, a shoe whose upper is one single knit piece, which has the potential to change the way shoes are made.
Nike Unveils Its Big New Paradigm: Shoes Knit Like Socks
New Nike+ Is iPhone Centered, Offering You A Personal Trainer And Workout Tracking
Should We End Black History Month?
I came across the story of Shukree Hassan Tilghman, a 32-year-old filmmaker who documented his one-man, cross-country campaign to end Black History Month on Facebook. It seems like a question that rolls around in the black community every February — what does it mean that recognizing black history is relegated to the coldest and shortest month of the year? Shouldn’t “black history” be incorporated into “American history”? Tilghman’s movie, More Than A Month looks at these questions through an earnest and comedic lens.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the Tilghman for a Q&A with The Root (he was insightful and witty over the phone despite being sick). The interview has generated a lot of buzz on the site (251 Facbeook likes and 432 comments/tweets thus far), but space constraints didn’t allow for readers to see the entirety of our conversation. Although I make it a point to avoid reading comments online, I felt I needed to at least make the full interview available to address these critiques: Tilghman isn’t a self-hating black man and he does understand the importance of recognizing black history. He’s just presented a counterpoint to what black history means to African Americans and America and wonders out loud what the next step is, while the rest of us pass through February in a red, black and green fog.
What we’re talking about is not ending it because it’s passe, or because it’s irrelevant or anything like that. It’s because the ultimate goal is to not need a Black History Month… It’s sort of like giving someone a crutch for a certain amount of time. The goal is not to keep the crutch, the goal is to get rid of the crutch so you can walk.
For the full interview (with a few edits here and there for clarity sake), read on…
Continue reading
Preach, Studs.
The keeper of Chicago’s stories put it best. I am searching for “daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
Anthonia Akitunde, The Most Interviewable Girl in New York
As one grows up, certain personality traits can coalesce into undeniable truths about a person. Take me for example. My natural gregariousness and ease around strangers translates into undeniable Anthonia Akitunde truth #43: I’m really good in interviews.
Job hunting in New York has afforded me the opportunity to see this truth in action. Since I moved here in February of last year, I have been on [starts counting on fingers] 11 interviews. I have 26 different cover letters all trumpeting my online, social media and print skills, reassuring “To whom it may concern” that I would be a great addition to [insert media company here]‘s staff. Unfortunately, when it comes to steady, full-time, 401k providing , health and dental benefits-giving employment I am always an interviewee and never a hire.
But hey, in these hard economic times, that’s the story for me, you, and every one we know, right? And it hasn’t exactly all been fruitless. I finally found my way into WNYC (my second through fourth, then eighth, interview in the city) after meeting with the business and economics editor in late December. Starting January 24, I’ll be doing as-needed per-diem work for the station’s business department, which is amazing. This new gig brings my count up to four big-name outlets I’m doing some type of work for: Fast Company, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businesseweek and now WNYC.
Which brings us to Anthonia Akitunde undeniable truth #76: I’m the definition of a hustler.
Women Who Launch
There is nothing like having your own, especially in a shaky job market with an even shakier economy. Over the last few months, I’ve noticed an uptick in women turning their passions into successful businesses, from Grace Bonney’s design blog turned book Design Sponge to former classmates Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur’s game changer Of A Kind, a limited-edition shopping site that has the distinction of being the first commerce-based Tumblr.
Seeing these friends and strangers court success — instead of waiting for it to come to them in the form of a job interview — has inspired me to pursue a life-long dream of mine. I’m not quite ready to divulge just what that is yet, but I’m applying for grants, coming up with a business plan and giving myself six months to make something happen. Because what’s the point of waiting any more? The clear path to success that used to be preached from the pulpit behind teacher’s desks no longer exists.
A New York Times Byline? I Can Die Happy Now
Photo credit: Uli Seit for The New York Times.
For as long as I can remember, there were two institutions that held considerable significance for me. One was Harvard (Poppa Akitunde recalls me telling him during my elementary school years that I was going to go there) and the other was the Grey Lady herself, the New York Times.
While I traded up in terms of higher education (GO MAROONS!), my fascination with the Times remained. As far as most people are concerned, it is the paper of record, still printing all the news that’s fit to print while acting as a leader in the way news is read online.
So you can imagine my delight when my Hail Mary toss of my resume to the Times deputy real estate editor got a response. And lo, my glee when a pitch about an Astoria family reshaping their neighborhood through luxury apartments and amenities was picked up. But to see my name in that familiar font on newsprint? Or to click on a NYTimes.com link that takes me to words I wrote? I mean… there are literally no words. Or, really, there are words… but they aren’t fit to print on this blog 
Click the picture or this link for my first (and hopefully not the last) New York Times article.
Halloween and “Disposal Blackness”
Like every Halloween before it, this year’s batch of costumes had the usual play on words and pop cultural references (I was the Black Swan in case you were wondering). But the all-too-common practice of wearing racially insensitive costumes went viral thanks to an Ohio University student organization’s ad campaign called, “We are a culture, not a costume.” You can see some of the posters above.
The powerful campaign — and a troubling encounter I had in a bar two weeks before All Hallowed Eve — led me to write an essay to speculate what people who dress in blackface and present racial stereotypes are getting out of the experience. A friend came up with the concept of “disposal blackness” which I thought was a great way to put it: in some cases, the person is getting to participate in a fetishized and commercialized culture without having to think much about what it means to be of that race/culture beyond November 1. I pitched the essay to The Root DC, an affiliate of the Washington Post focused on black news, and it ran on their homepage on October 28!
Read my thoughts here and let me know what you think of the post in the comments section!