Portside

Today I mourn with the families and community of the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Charleston, S.C. I mourn for the living and the dead. I mourn for Black life. But simultaneously, I rage. I rage against the executions, beatings, dispersals, and assassinations of Black people everywhere. I am calling out the current manifestation of Black genocide, racial cleansing, and white terrorism happening in the U.S.

Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) National Security Project, said the Obama administration “continues to fight against even basic transparency” about how it justifies the executions of thousands of people under the programme.