So your definition of mass shooting is ‘what happened in Vegas,’ but your definition of a massacre is what happened other places that weren’t Vegas? I’m not following. So if Black Wall Street is domestic terrorism but not a mass shooting, what was the San Bernadino shooting? Maybe you should take some time and think…

Please enlighten me as to the difference. While you do that, can you also explain it to the largest news outlets in the country. Thanks.

I’m really surprised (and yet I guess I’m not) that I had never heard of most of these. The only one I was aware of is the Wounded Knee Massacre, which my state prefers to call a “battle,” where 150 men, women and children were slaughtered by US troops.

This is kind of splitting hairs, but the events named in the article and in the comments don’t fit the definition of public mass shootings owing to being massacres with an aim in mind. Mass shooters, according the working definition, kill people randomly. They might target specific people, but to be included in the…

To The Root and Michael Harriot, I want to say thank you. You keep teaching me things I should already know. I keep coming back and learning. Thank you all.

Seriously, the Newtown shooting broke something in me. I remember I cried at my desk the whole day and just thought, something will happen now. Something has to happen now. Then nothing. And still nothing.

I hit that point with GWB, then Obama gave me hope. I’m getting whiplash here.

Nothing. Nothing is good about the US anymore. It’s going to fall apart or it’s going to be left behind by the rest of the world. Trump wants it to return to the 1950s, he wants globalization to go away. That is impossible, so the only solution he found is to try and isolate the US on a world stage, and it’s working…

I know. There literally is no bottom to this barrel.

So, so much worse.

I think you make a very good point regarding the way American history whitewashes these events. Some of them I knew about, particularly Rosewood. Others, I’d only heard of or didn’t know the details. But I also think there’s a dimension to the 2013 definition that’s meaningful here. The authors specifically state that…

This week completely broke me. The events in Puerto Rico and vegas make me so profoundly sad and depressed.

Well, 300 dead blacks is 180 deaths according to the Constitution, so...

Oh, I know. There are people in my extended family who are stupid enough to try and portray themselves as worthy of handouts, but not those pesky brown folk.

My cousin married a woman from a stereotypical Kentucky hillbilly family. He was telling me that his wife’s family actually have a term for getting on…

Some black people like Pumpkin Spice Lattes, too, but those mildly-caffeinated cups-o-diabetes are still the fault of my light-skinned brethren.

Black Wall Street. Holy shit :(

Hi, Native America here............

Thank you for this.

That’s not what I get from Coates. He was one of the first to to insist on calling out white supremacy as a founding principle of America, and he forces the conversation on white people who would no doubt prefer to talk about anything else.

I like Coates, but I do believe that it is hyperbole when we equate him with Baldwin. I read parts of his last book, but saw nothing that moved me like Baldwin did, nor have I read anything as brilliant. He’s good, but I am not salivating to read his latest book.