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Bobbi Kristina Brown: A Timeline of Turmoil and Tragedy
Born of stars but seemingly star-crossed, 21-year-old Bobbi Kristina Brown has spent her entire life in the spotlight, fighting both her and her famous parents’ demons on TV, Twitter and in the tabloids. Now the daughter of music legend Whitney Houston and R&B singer Bobby Brown is fighting for her life. She was found by…
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Did the Boycott Matter to Black Friday Retail Sales?
Getting in the black got a bit harder for some retailers this holiday season, thanks to everyone from the retailers themselves to nationwide protests related to Ferguson, Mo. In figures released Sunday by the National Retail Federation, sales were down 11 percent this past Thanksgiving weekend. That’s a nearly $7 billion drop in revenue since…
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Want to Improve Voter Turnout? Abolish Voter Registration. No, Really!
It’s your right to vote. So why does our society seem not to want you to use it? Two-thirds of eligible voters did not vote in this year’s midterm elections. It was the lowest electoral turnout since World War II—a time when most black people couldn’t even vote because of Jim Crow laws and because…
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Bill Cosby: Comedian, Philanthropist, but Rape Allegations Won’t Go Away
On Monday, Bill Cosby’s website released the Cosby meme generator (now removed), an image macro that was supposed to let people create memes of the famed comedian from his Cosby Show days. But Cosby’s meme generator turned into an unfiltered vehicle to denounce the comedian over the numerous allegations of sexual assault that have plagued him…
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The 5 Worst States for Black People
Progress, the story of black America. We started from the most bottom of bottoms (not having personhood) and worked our way up to the age of Obama, where we are leaps and bounds better than we were (hey, we have personhood now!) but are still struggling to make it to the middle, let alone to…
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It’s No Surprise—Study Shows Why Nonvoters Are the Voters Who Need to Vote the Most
When I was growing up in the Midwest, my father worked for one of the largest defense contractors in the United States. And he was exactly the type of voter sought after by politicians. Why? He worked for the largest employer in the state, he was part of the middle class, he was a married…
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This Isn’t New—Venus and Serena Have Endured Nasty Insults Throughout Their Careers
Over the weekend, Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpischev apologized for calling Venus and Serena Williams “the Williams brothers”—the least-funny insult in what for the Williamses has been a career filled with unfunny, sexist and racist insults for the sisterly titans of professional women’s tennis. Ever since they stepped onto the court in the mid-1990s, the Williams…
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Not-So-Great Expectations: Teachers Expect Less of Black and Brown Students
A recent study by the Center for American Progress released this month highlighted what some might call the “soft bigotry of low expectations” if there was a way to take a jug of Downy fabric softener and make old-fashioned implicit bias gentler. The study found that teachers can have a bit of a Pygmalion effect…
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How to Get Away With Dressing to Kill
Last week 12 million tuned in for TV producer Shonda Rhimes’ new addictive hit, How to Get Away With Murder, starring Viola Davis. Some of those viewers were immersed in the whodunit drama and murderous legal clientele; some were just in it for the clothes: For good … https://twitter.com/andreanaclay/status/517903029811425280https://twitter.com/mstraciemorris/status/518180364381339650 And for bad … https://twitter.com/mellyville/status/518145713650552832https://twitter.com/remylekun/status/518075579791208448 But we…
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How The Cosby Show Changed the Game for Blacks on TV
Thirty years ago The Cosby Show changed what was possible if you were black and on television, that you didn’t have to play to type and there truly was a universality of the human experience. You could finally be anything—a doctor, a lawyer, a homeboy in outer space. With the right talent and support, any TV…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
