Articles

Who Gets to Tell a Black Story?

This piece is about the making of “The Corner,” a TV series about black drug addicts, told from their perspective. The script was based on a book by a white…

Which Man’s Army

Holmes spent a year reporting this story about two drill sergeants—one black and one white—in a company at Fort Knox, Ky. The piece chronicles their jockeying for power, advancement and…

Lost in the Music

Stabler’s series about a black music prodigy is well-reported and -written. We like the rich detail, the elegant descriptions, deft characterizations. What seems left out are more insights into why…

Two Jobs and a Sense of Hope

In this final, sad chapter of the series, a West African immigrant, Adama Camara, scrubs toilets and wipes tables for 16 hours a day. The world is a grimy, dreary,…

Dreaming Against the Odds

In this second installment of Hull’s series, you’ll find this small example of how even a newspaper article (the voice of which is usually straight and communitarian) can include irony:…

The Exorcist in Love

The subject of this profile is not like most of us. Is she crazy? A hustler? Or does she know things we can’t? We need the writer to make sense…

A Hidden Addiction Fuels a Life of Chaos

Gurnett’s attitude in this piece is curious, compassionate, never melodramatic. Gurnett achieves "narrative distance," a detachment from her subject, even as she seeks to understand him. Her writing has more…

Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings

This is a fascinating account of an integrated Fundamentalist southern church and its courageous struggles with race. Through his focus on two church couples, one white and one black, Sack…

Reaping What Was Sown on the Old Plantation

This is the tale of a black park ranger and a white landowner, the descendant of slaveowners, in Louisiana. It’s a story about the unearthing of grievances, about perception, truth…

The French Fry Connection

This series has global reach, an international cast of characters—and shows that, to paraphrase Tip O’Neil, “all economics is local.” Read seeks to explain the wide repercussions of the Asian…