-
Michael Jackson: The Writings on the Wall
Michael Jackson’s songwriting accolades are long overdue. For many, his extant death prompted scores of self-professed music connoisseurs to disinter a body of work that exhibited a ”mean pen game”—a contemporary colloquialism suggesting a profound writing ability. This skill is not readily associated with Jackson for several reasons. For the most part, his records were…
-
First Lady and Kerry Washington Push for the Arts
(The Root) — Students from the Savoy Elementary School in Washington, D.C., crooned, somersaulted, Lindy Hopped and re-enacted scenes from the 1970s film Grease on Friday as a way to flex their school’s new muscles in arts education. They performed in the gym to an audience of their peers and two distinguished ladies cheering in…
-
Meet Compton's New Black Female Mayor
Aja Brown, 31, was just named the mayor of Compton, Calif., in a special runoff election on Tuesday, June 4. The Los Angeles Times reports that Brown, an African-American urban planner and graduate of the University of South Carolina, was up against Omar Bradley, a former two-term mayor and leading political figure in Compton. Analysts…
-
Racist Testimony in Death-Penalty Case Inspires New Doc
The new documentary A Broken Promise in Texas: Race, the Death Penalty and the Duane Buck Case, released by the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, sheds light on the 1997 Texas death-penalty trial of Duane Buck, an African-American man who was convicted of shooting three people, two of whom died. The controversy: Jurors listened…
-
Flavorful Fatherhood: Black Celeb Dads
Reading bedtime stories to his daughter so that she would fall asleep did not work in the Jackson household. In an audio recording on YouTube, the actor describes how he used “colorful” language to his daughter Zoe, now 30, to close up shop for the night. “I did say, ‘Go the f—k to sleep’ to…
-
Single Black Dad: You Can't Take My Child
(The Root) — Within the span of three weeks, two public officials went above and beyond their immediate duties to help Chad Milner gain custody of his 9-month-old daughter. An officer in a Virginia sheriff’s department gave Milner (then 26, and a recent Morehouse College graduate) off-the-record advice about what he needed to do to…
-
Allen Iverson's Ex-Wife: He Abducted Our Kids
In the ongoing saga that is Allen Iverson’s life, his ex-wife, Tawanna Iverson, has filed papers accusing the former Philadelphia 76er of abducting their children. He has yet to return them to her after taking them on vacation on May 22, according to Sports Illustrated. Tawanna Iverson filed papers that said Allen asked for permission…
-
Jurnee Smollett-Bell Makes Vampire Debut
Actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell jumped into action when she found out she was being considered for a role on the hit HBO series True Blood. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Smollett-Bell said that she and her husband shot an impromptu audition video in her in-laws’ basement to convince producers that she had what it takes…
-
Communism Didn't End Racism in Cuba
Afro-Cuban activists Calvo Cárdenas and Manuel Cuesta Morúa created the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR) to advocate for Cuba’s underrepresented Afro-Cuban population. CIR champions policies to fight discrimination that Afro-Cubans experience in the workforce. The group’s work gives Cuba’s Communist Party pause because it refutes the idea that 50 years of communism has eliminated…
-
First-Generation Blacks: My Parents Are African, So Some Parts of Coming to America Was Straight Up Annoying
(The Root) — When Coming to America premiered 25 years ago, on June 29, 1988, it was an instant classic — and the third-highest-grossing film of the year. The Eddie Murphy comedy, about a prince from a fictional African country who comes to the U.S. to find his future queen, tops plenty of fans’ funniest-movie-of-all-time…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
