In 2013, we published a 40-week series of true stories of unemployment. When it concluded, I still had dozens of unpublished stories. Here are a few.

“And the sign says, you gotta have a membership card to get inside. Uh!” -Tesla

“Donald Trump says Carl Icahn should be in charge of the entire American economy!” shouted the man into the bullhorn as we stood in front of Trump Tower. “Everything you hate about the American economy, Carl Icahn does.” America’s working class Trump supporters still have ample time to reconsider.

America’s colleges and universities are out for the summer. For students, it’s a time to party. For the low-paid adjunct professors who make higher education function, it is a time to wonder whether they made a terrible mistake.

As the “Empire State of Mind” beat filled the packed CenturyLink Arena in Omaha, the chorus slid in: “At Berkshire, financial strength is what dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t dooooo….” The white, middle-aged crowd of investors jammed. Is this is the humble setting from which champions arise?

America’s bloated higher education industry is supported by the work of an immense pool of well-educated and very poorly paid workers: the adjunct professors. They are telling us all about it. And they have a few ideas.

Adjunct professors are the most highly educated low-wage workers in America. And they told us all about it.

“Fuck Verizon!”

What do former First Lady Laura Bush, IMF chief Christine Lagarde, Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, and comedian Mindy Kaling have in common? They are all women. And... and??

In New York City, you find subcultures for every sexual persuasion, bars dedicated to every football team, and food from every nation on earth. Hell, you can even find a few hundred people who support Ted Cruz.

On the first day, God created the line.

In April, several months before Rachel Dolezal became head jester of racial appropriation court, Rush Limbaugh called celebrated black image activist and feminist Michaela Angela Davis, “a mixed-race little orphan Annie.” The statement was shockingly ugly, a blatant reminder from the court’s self-appointed king that,…

If this were a slasher film, one of the teenage protagonists, most likely a young girl running from a masked assailant who knew what she did last summer, would slip in the buffed and shiny halls of Main Street High, the camera zooming in on her screaming face as we brace for the inevitability of what will happen to…

“What do you think I want, respect or compliance?”

I was born in North Memphis, right before the Sears Crosstown closed. My upbringing was marked by two decades of declining employment opportunities and home ownership. It was also marked by scenes of violence that I cannot forget—scenes that pushed me to pursue my dream at all costs.

The other day, I thought the unthinkable.

Before I met Sierra Mannie, I met one of her sentences: “What I do know is that I don’t care how well you can quote Madea, who told you that your booty was getting bigger than hers, how cute you think it is to call yourself a strong black woman, who taught you to twerk, how funny you think it is to call yourself Quita…

I went to the White House this week, for the first and likely last time. Here is what I saw.

Memphis. July 17. A Friday. Carefree black boys call it a night. Darrius Stewart is just around the corner from his mama’s house when blue light hits the rearview mirror of the Chevy Malibu. A routine traffic stop. A simple thing. One week ago, Sandra Bland was stopped in Texas for a simple thing.

He stared at me like he knew me. Like, if we lived in the same hood, we would kick it. We probably would. Hennessy is my favorite drink, too.