What I Read This Week (And Last Week) – 12/23/2014

Here’s my gift to you! I’ll be back in 2015 with more good reads! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

• After Ferguson, the weight of a conversation. A father in Arizona talks with his daughter.
• Profile of Donte Stallworth, a former NFL player now working for the Huffington Post.
• An interview with outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder.
• The inside story about Master P’s No Limit Sports.
• I love stories about the mechanics of media and always liked David Gregory of NBC. Here’s how he fell from grace.
• A profile of Seattle Seahawks Marshawn Lynch, who doesn’t care much for the media but cares alot about helping kids in his hometown of Oakland.
• Bound By A Plantation, Two Georgians Remember A Special Christmas.
• Mass Incarceration’s Collateral Damage: The Children Left Behind.
• How Young Thug Got Trapped By A $15,000 Advance From A Major Label.
• The Rise of Extreme Daycare: with more people working non traditional shifts, the need is rising.
• What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs.
• What happens when a cute little brown boy becomes a black man.
• An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’ (You might lose your thug on this one..)
• The Sad Saga of Tommy Gaines: the story of a Georgia basketball legend who lost his dreams to drug addiction, and his quest for redemption.
• A conversation with Chris Rock.
• A ‘Survivor’ Producer, a Dead Wife, Four Years in a Mexican Prison: New Evidence Amid a Nightmare.
• Growing up ‘post-racial,’ teens suddenly find a world that isn’t.
• Four Lessons From The Media’s Conflicted Coverage of Race.
• Is it a crime to raise a killer?
• Giving away ‘Anatoly Z.’: One boy’s un-adoption, two families who love him and a woman’s mission to bring ‘rehoming’ out of the shadows. (This was a REAL good one.)
• Behind The Alarming Rise Of The Online Vigilante Detective.
• For rape victims, hurt and anger in dealing with New Orleans police.
• Let’s go crazy: Inside the making of Purple Rain.
• York&Fig: At the Intersection of Change. Gentrification in Los Angeles.
• Good Kids, Bad City: After 39 Years of Wrongful Incarceration, Ricky Jackson and the Bridgeman Brothers Walk Free.
• At Nets’ Game, a Plan for a Simple Statement Is Carried Out to a T.
• This Andrew Goldman piece about how Twitter ruined his career is worth reading.
• Critic’s Notebook: Hollywood, Obama and the Boxing-In of Black Achievers.
• What it’s Like to be Black In the NYPD Right Now.
• Yes, North Korea has the internet. Here’s what it looks like.
• For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun.
• The Slow Death of the Death Penalty: The public supports it, but the costs are lethal. (Another must read)
• From the E.R. to the Courtroom: How Nonprofit Hospitals Are Seizing Patients’ Wages.

Lastly, but certainly not least, if you want to read some of the rest long reads by category then go here and knock yourself out!