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A War on the Poor Erupted in 2013
America has always been a tough country if you’re starting from zero. Sure, we praise and salute rags-to-riches stories because they make us feel better about the gross inequities in our society, but the reality is much bleaker. Systemic poverty is real. One job loss or serious health scare can take you from being solidly…
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Why Can’t Fox News Leave Christmas Alone? Christmas Is Doing Just Fine
Ah, another year. Another “war on Christmas.” If the likes of Fox News (and its acolytes Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly) didn’t bang on those war drums every year to let me know that Christmas was under assault (in America, where 83 percent of Americans are Christians), I’d never know. Because for something “under threat,”…
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You’re 25 and Think You’re Immune From Racism? You’re Not Alone
What does it mean if you believe that sexism and racism are real, but you don’t feel that they have an impact on your day-to-day life? Does it mean that you’re like the Grand Old Party and think we all overcame by virtue of Rosa Parks’ sitting where she wasn’t supposed to sit oh so…
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The Pitfalls of Parenting
Hitting your child is bad. (But don’t yell at me for writing it. Yell at science. Multiple studies say so.) Most school districts have moved away from corporal punishment entirely, and even though you will find some very staunch pro-“whoopings” enthusiasts, they remain greatly outnumbered by the multitudes who think that any hitting of a…
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Love Terrence Howard, but Don't Like Terrence Howard
The Best Man Holiday may be surpring industry insiders with another strong performance at the box office this weekend, but it isn’t a surprise to long-time fans of the original Best Man and its dynamic cast. Among that cast, though, is a man who nearly kept me from seeing the movie, a man of whom…
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Former Ambassador Defends Obama’s NSA Spying Program
A month after then-President Bill Clinton appointed Charles R. Stith as his new ambassador to Tanzania, the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam was bombed by Al Qaeda. It happened pre-9/11, in August 1998, and Stith was tasked with restoring the embassy while “promoting American trade and investment in Africa.” Today, Stith is director of the…
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‘Ask a Slave’: How Did You Get to Be a House Maid?
(The Root) — Born out of her experience playing the slave maid of George Washington at his Mount Vernon estate, actress Azie Mira Dungey’s acclaimed Web series, Ask a Slave, is a tragicomic homage to the questions she encountered there. Dungey plays the slave Lizzie Mae in the series, which begins its second season on…
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Black Adults Need to Stop Spewing Anti-Black Rhetoric at Children
Sheryl Underwood’s disparaging comments about kinky hair jogged Danielle C. Belton’s memory about the negative things she’s heard black adults say to black children about their features. In a piece at Clutch magazine, Belton stresses the importance of grown folk not giving black children inferiority complexes about their brown complexions or hair texture. The people who told me…
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Obama: Standing in the Shadow of MLK
(The Root) — In my grandmother’s Arkansas home hangs a portrait of President Barack Obama with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the portrait has written beneath the two men “We Have a Dream; the Dream Has Come True.” It was one of many paintings, posters, buttons, T-shirts and other products that came…
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Have I Wasted the Civil Rights Legacy?
(The Root) — I have a friend, a good friend, with whom I share an affliction. He, too, comes from a good family that has done many great things in the face of dire situations, which he and I would learn about only in books. We read about the “Whites Only” bathrooms, lunch counters, the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
