Gene Demby

Last week, New York City's police commissioner Bill Bratton went before state lawmakers and asked them to raise the penalty for resisting arrest from a misdemeanor to a felony.

"We need to get around this idea that you can resist arrest," he later told reporters. "It results in potential ...

A D.C. charter school founded by and located at Howard University has been embroiled for days in an increasingly public fight over the firing of three teachers, Parents and students claim the teachers were dismissed for teaching Black History Month lessons, they've mobilized in protest, and social media is abuzz. ...

By now, you've surely seen Jonathan Chait's sprawling takedown of what he describes as a dangerous resurgence of political correctness in the 21st century. In his telling, a PC culture that flourished on college campuses in the 90's is back, stronger than ever thanks to Twitter and social media, ...

When Chenjerai Kumanyika sat down to record his first public radio piece last summer, he was thrown off by his own voice.

He didn't sound like Sarah Koenig of Serial or Roman Mars of 99 % Invisible. They sounded wonderful, Kumanyika thought. "They also ...

At the end of Selma, the new movie about a pivotal campaign in the Civil Rights Movement, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo) rises to address a crowd in front of a courthouse.

It's a recreation of the moment in which King gave one of his

James Estrin of the New York Times' Lens blog and his colleagues have become fixated on a old, recently rediscovered old photo taken by Gordon Parks, the legendary Life magazine photographer. So they've put out a call to their readers for any helpful info about it.

Here's what ...

In the aftermath of the massacre Wednesday at Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine, there are obviously big questions about the attackers, their motives and what it might mean for French society. For more of NPR's coverage of the attack and of Charlie Hebdo, check out the Two-Way.

...

Race is a constant underlying theme in American sports — in conversations about labor vs. ownership, social responsibility, changing demographics and meritocracy — and this year, it seemed like everywhere you looked, the subtext was becoming text. Professional athletes became more outspoken about racial controversies, while ...

In Part 2 of a roundtable on the Podcast Everyone's Talking About, Code Switch's Gene Demby says that a lot of Serial's themes echo news stories that focus attention on how our justice system works.

Alan Cheuse reviews "The Strange Library" by Haruki Murakami.

Take a look at the flier for this weekend's planned "Justice For All March" in Washington, D.C., which is centered on several recent police-involved killings of unarmed black men. There's no specific policy demand on that flier — perhaps because the problem doesn't lend itself to a singular fix.

...

Never Alone, a new video game by E-Line Media, has been generating a lot of buzz in recent months. Its developers teamed up with the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, a nonprofit that works with Native Alaskans, creating Never Alone as a way to help transmit traditional tribal stories to younger ...

Movie award season is upon us once again, which means that it's peak biopic season. You know what I mean — those big, sweeping epics about the life of a Very Important Person portrayed by a Very Serious Actor.

These blockbuster, wide-release biopics have been reliable vehicles for many actors ...

As America's longest-lived white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan has achieved a rare kind of name recognition. You know the way people say "Xerox" when they mean "to photocopy" or "Kleenex" when they mean "tissue"? "KKK" functions something like that, except it shorthands to "racial terrorism and extrajudicial killings."

...

A heads-up to our readers: We use some language in this post that some folks might find offensive.

Last week, the Toronto Star found itself in the midst of one of those blink-and-you-missed-it Internet kerfuffles over race.

Here's what happened. The Ontario Human Rights Commission had settled on a ...

It's Halloween — a time for Frankenstein monsters and vampires and werewolves. But many of us have our own monsters from different cultures, and when we threw out a call to our readers asking what ghost stories and folktales they grew up with in their own traditions, we got back ...

By now, most indie film fans have heard of Dear White People, the much-hyped debut feature from Justin Simien. It's out in wide release in theaters today. The movie, which garnered a lot of buzz on the festival circuit, is styled as a satire about being black and navigating life ...

Oh my god, they look so young! It was 1981 when this little Athens, Ga. based band started making a splash. Over the years that followed they made waves. This small trailer for a larger documentary about R.E.M. is a beautiful peek at innocence, youth, the '80s and MTV. The ...

One night last fall, I was walking through Chinatown in Washington, D.C., with my friend Terryn. We were not far from a dude who was in his mid-20s — slim, with neat, shoulder-length locks, skinny chinos, loafers and a leather briefcase slung across his torso — standing on the corner, ...