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The GOP Hires Black ‘Suicide Squad’ to Save It From Trump
Suicide Squad was a pretty terrible movie that a whole lot of people saw. A group of criminals, thugs and psychopaths are brought together by shadowy government operative Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis) to take on the jobs that no one else would ever take. Dirty jobs. Dangerous jobs. Jobs where your chance of…
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How Both Hillary Clinton and Black and Latino Journalists Blew Their Big Shot
There are a few people I would wait an entire day to see onstage. Chris Rock, if he were doing a live set with new material. Zadie Smith reading from one of her most recent works. I would even consider getting up early to get tickets to see Michelle Obama, since I haven’t heard her…
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Worst Behavior: How Donald Trump’s Self-Inflicted Wounds Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” That was the response of Larry Sabato, my mentor and old professor from the University of Virginia, when I asked him during a radio interview to put the last week of the 2016 presidential campaign in context. Sabato has been writing about American campaign politics since the 1970s; there…
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What Unity? Twitter Reveals a Great Divide Within Both Political Parties
Bernie Sanders dominates Snapchat, House Democrats just discovered Periscope and your grandma is starting to share her vacation on Facebook Live. Social media isn’t “mediating” life anymore; it is the primary mode of communication for Americans across class, race, gender and age. So when there is a Twitter analysis of the Republican and Democratic conventions,…
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Hillary Clinton Reminds America It’s Not About Qualifications
Qualified people get passed over for jobs all the time. Having the best résumé, doing the perfect interview and even providing the most stellar references (“Applicant saved me from a burning building once and makes a damn good cup of coffee; hire him!”) does not always guarantee that you’ll get the job. More often than…
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Dear Michelle Obama, Never Leave. Sincerely, Everyone
I am not unique when I say I have had a long and special relationship with first lady Michelle Obama. It started way back in 2008 when I got so many robocalls from her to get out and vote that I thought Barack might get jealous. In the last eight years, that nonexistent fantasy relationship…
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Debbie Wasserman Schultz Shoots Herself in the Foot Right Before the DNC
The Wikileaks drop on Friday has brought up the dreaded words “email,” “rigged” and “Debbie Wasserman Schultz” again right before a week that was supposed to eliminate all of those words from the minds of Democratic National Convention-goers and viewers. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will resign from her position at the end…
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Donald Trump, America’s Savior: 3 Takeaways From His RNC Speech
On Thursday night, I sat in a booth with several other journalists and watched Donald Trump tell America he was going to save us. He was going to save us from the undocumented immigrant criminals, the lazy politicians, the bad trade deals, the violence in our streets and the terrorism abroad. His speech was more…
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Ted Cruz Defies GOP, Won’t Endorse Trump, Is Gangsta
The Republican convention has been hard to watch this week, and not just because of the loud, gaudy, Hunger Games-like banners floating across the stage. The convention, which is supposed to highlight what the Republican Party has to offer the American people (and demonstrate unity), has failed at almost every level. First you had the…
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Keep America Safe Again: A Black Person’s Guide to Safety, Space and Activism at the RNC
“Be safe.” “Stay safe, brother.” “Be safe, praying for you.” These are the paraphrases of just about every text, Facebook post and social media DM I’ve received since spreading the word that I was headed to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week. The absolute palpable fear on the part of black people I…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
