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Stephen A. Smith Gets Real About ESPN, Race and His Obligations to Black Viewers
Whether you love him, hate him, quote him or only know the Saturday Night Live Jay Pharoah impressions of him, everyone has a #hottake about Stephen A. Smith. Smith is the senior host of First Take (after his longtime co-host, Skip Bayless, left the show earlier this year), the No. 1-rated sports show on the…
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From Russia With Blackness: Terrell J. Starr, Black America’s Russian Translator
Terrell J. Starr has been Columbused by many in the mainstream media in the last several weeks. As the Russian hack on the 2016 election and President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin dominate the headlines, outlets are looking for a fresh take on Russian politics and American vulnerabilities. Terrell J. Starr—tall, black,…
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Trust but Don’t Verify: How WikiLeaks Became the World’s Pawnshop
After a slow trickle of stories over the better part of 2016, the CIA has released a statement claiming that the Russians used cyberwarfare to attack the U.S. election. Russian agents spread disinformation through “fake news” and pro-Donald Trump Twitter bots, attacked Democratic congressional candidates, attempted to hack voter information in various states, and funneled information from hacked emails…
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Go See Office Christmas Party and Remember Everything You Like About the Holidays
Nostalgia is a funny thing in the movies. When it’s done right, movies whisk us back to some bygone romanticized era where we could all laugh, party and relive simpler times—think Hot Tub Time Machine’s depiction of the ’80s. When movie nostalgia goes wrong, it’s a trip back to someone else’s fantasy past, when white…
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Trevor Noah, Tomi Lahren and When Black Twitter Gets It Wrong
In the summer of 2007, I spent time in Johannesburg, South Africa, working with government officials and activists to improve local elections. South Africans were generally friendly, but I was struck by how optimistic they were about the future of the country even though apartheid had only ended, like, 15 minutes ago (1991, to be exact).…
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The 9 Rings of Donald Trump’s Administrative Hell
In Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem Divine Comedy, the titular character is guided through the nine circles of hell. The darker your crimes, the lower the levels of hell you descend to until you meet up with Satan himself, trapped at the center of it all. At the top are crimes…
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Jill Stein Calls for Recounts in Mich., Wis. and Pa.—But Why Is She Leading the Charge and Not Hillary Clinton?
Throughout election night, the Clinton campaign comforted themselves with the belief that her “blue wall” would ultimately secure her presidential victory. Then, one by one, to the surprise of just about everyone in America, including the Trump campaign, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all went red. These are states that not only were polling in Clinton’s…
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The Trump-Obama Postelection Bromance Is the Worst Magical Negro Movie Ever
Sen. Barack Obama, President Barack Obama, soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama, perhaps even Barack Obama the husband and father, has always been a paragon of patience and magnanimity. Joe Lieberman betrays him during the passage of Obamacare? He lets it go. Congressman yells at him during the State of the Union? Obama brushes it off. Republican…
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The Black Press Faces New Reality in the Era of Trump
“Twitter is blowing up about this.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people utter this phrase, calmly walking back to the greenroom at CNN, MSNBC or Fox, heads craned forward to look at their phones. Twitter responses, especially negative ones, are like a rite of passage when you do television commentary. It…
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The Swing State Strikes Out: Cleveland Loses the World Series and Ohio Politics May Never Be the Same
The Cleveland Indians lost the World Series Wednesday to the Chicago Cubs, blowing a seemingly insurmountable 3-1 series lead. Even if you don’t like baseball, the game was a classic. Game-saving home runs, questionable manager decisions, a “God Hates Cleveland”-inspired, momentum-killing rain delay and extra innings that ran until almost 1 a.m. Of course, there…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
