I am an attorney, technologist, writer and educator interested in the intersection of law, technology, identity, and organizing. Currently, I’m a partner at O’Neill and Hassen LLP, a law practice focused on indigent criminal defense, and a co-founder of Black Movement-Law Project, a legal support rapid response group that grew out of the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. Formerly, I was Mass Defense Coordinator at the National Lawyers Guild. I have also worked as a political campaign manager and strategist, union organizer, and community organizer.
My research is centered on the interaction of race, technology, and law, and the practice and theory of organizing and the role of law as both catalyst and impediment. I aim to develop holistic understandings that looks at subjects from multiple perspectives to interrogate issues of identity, moral philosophy, and social control in the context of building organizations for social change and surveying the horizon of political possibility.
Some Quotes I Like
To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter.
— James Baldwin
Well, we’re barely a nation at all anymore, but I’m glad we’re still in space. We have to be going some place other than down the toilet.
― Octavia E. Butler, (Lauren) Parable of the Sower
The theorist who intervenes in practical controversies nowadays discovers on a regular basis and to his shame that whatever ideas he might contribute were expressed long ago—and usually better the first time around
- Theodor W. Adorno
We must practice revolutionary democracy.…Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…
— Amilcar Cabral
Selected Media and Publications
- Interview with me on EFF’s “How to Fix the Internet”
- Meet the EFA, Panel at HOPE 20, (video linked)
- The Left Should Direct the Impeachment Effort, Truthout.org
- Mueller Investigation Will Set a Precedent — Make It a Good One, Truthout.org
- Panel at The 35th Session of The Human Rights Council: Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association in The U.S., Geneva, CH (video linked)
- Encryption vs. Surveillance in the New Civil Rights Movement, Truthout.org
- Aaron Was a Criminal and So Are You, Commondreams.org