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CNN’s New Black in America Special Explores the Strife Between Cops and Young Black Men
Soledad O’Brien dedicates the next installment of her Black in America documentary series to the ongoing tensions between cops and working-class black people. The special airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CNN and is called Black & Blue—the former presumably representing the Trayvon Martins, Jordan Davises, Eric Garners and Michael Browns of the nation, that…
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NBA Union Leader Blasts Team Owners, Salary Cap and the Age Limit
It seems like there’s something in the water with regard to high-profile people coming to the defense of athletes and the issue of whether they’re underpaid. Earlier this week, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made a convincing case for why college athletes should be paid, and now Michele Roberts, the first female executive director of the…
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Obama: Undocumented Immigrants Who Have Lived, Worked and Raised Kids in US Can Stay
Federal officials who are responsible for tracking down and deporting undocumented immigrants will likely have new marching orders from the White House as early as next week that will be far more lenient. According to a New York Times report, President Barack Obama is putting the final touches on a “memorandum” that will allow millions…
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Girls of All Shades, You’re Going to Want to Hear How Dark Girls Has a New Life
I knew very early on that my strand of black wasn’t exactly preferred or exalted. I’m chocolate-complexioned—or, to use the term that is most frequently used to describe my hue (much to my chagrin), dark-skinned. Colorism. It’s arguably one of the most painful vestiges of slavery: society’s disproportionate preference for caramel-complexioned black women, and the insecurities that it…
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: College Athletes Should Be Paid
NBA icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put pen to paper and made a case for why college athletes should be paid. In a 1,300-word essay published in Jacobin magazine, Abdul-Jabbar spoke firsthand about his experiences as a basketball player at UCLA and described how he could barely rub two pennies together on most days. “Despite the hours…
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Historic Head Nod: 100 Women Now Serve in Congress
Lost in all the bickering among Democrats and Republicans about the midterm elections—the latter rejoicing and the former reminding everyone that approximately two-thirds of the electorate didn’t vote—is the historic makeup of Congress with regard to its female members. On Wednesday Rep. Alma Adams, who now represents North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District, was sworn into office…
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Michael Brown’s Parents Pour Their Hearts Out to the UN
Michael Brown’s parents, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr., spoke before a United Nations committee in Geneva on Tuesday to urge the panel to “recommend the immediate arrest” of the police officer who shot their unarmed son, a CNN report explains. They also told the committee to recommend that Ferguson, Mo., police officers put an…
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Mo. National Guard on Standby as Darren Wilson Grand Jury Verdict Nears
Soon the nation will learn if a grand jury in Missouri has decided to bring charges against police Officer Darren Wilson, the cop who fatally shot the unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. The state’s governor, Jay Nixon, thought it would be smart to place the state’s National Guard on standby just in case a verdict is…
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President Obama Wants Open Internet; Here Is What That Means
Who knew that the slow Internet service some people experience from time to time on certain Web pages might be intentional? It’s also a bit of a political issue. Here’s how: Internet service providers—take Verizon, for instance—could charge money to content providers to decide which services get streamed fastest to certain customers, but that would mean that other…
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Obama: Relax, US Soldiers Won’t Fight Islamic State Directly; They’ll Help Iraqi Forces
The 1,500 U.S. soldiers who will be deployed to Iraq to fight the Islamic State group will not be engaged in direct fighting, President Barack Obama explained during his appearance on CBS’ Meet the Press Sunday. Rather, they’ll be there to assist Iraqi soldiers with training and other logistical needs, an Al-Jazeera report explains. “But what we will not be…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
