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IRS Apology for Tea Party Racists?
(The Root) — The confederacy of dunces that makes up the Republican Party leadership and Fox News want you to believe that liberal operatives at the IRS abused power — for political purposes — by scrutinizing conservative Tea Party affiliates applying for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status. What has been missed in the mainstream debate on the…
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Jason Collins: Black, Gay and a Real Man
(The Root) — The measure of man is not easily calculated, nor apparent to the eye. Assessing character requires levers of the heart and mind — rendering scales wholly useless. Martin Luther King Jr. posited that the ultimate measure was to be determined not by where a man stood in times of comfort and convenience…
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Yes, They're White and Muslim
(The Root) — The American story has too long been told through a racial lens and always vis-à-vis “whiteness.” This is a dangerous premise — fortifying the principles of white supremacy, entirely incongruent with the nation’s democratic values. In no area is this problem more apparent than the American media — and news reporting in…
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How Rising Food Costs Affect Black Families
(The Root) — Like most Americans, you may have noticed the price of chicken has risen by nearly a quarter over the past year. Fresh vegetables and produce are increasingly more expensive. Feeding the average family of four is taking a toll on the poor, low-income and middle-class alike. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports…
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Kimani Gray: Another NYPD Usual Suspect?
(The Root) — Kimani Gray, a 16-year-old boy from the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., was gunned down by two plainclothes officers last Saturday night. According to official New York City Police Department reports, the officers on patrol approached Kimani when he separated himself from the group he was with and “adjusted his waistband” in…
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How the Sequester Crosses the Color Line
(The Root) — For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Voters have twice elected an African-American president, and Republicans have twice responded with obstinance — by waging an intellectual civil war. Voter-suppression efforts were insufficient to deliver a Romney victory, but strategically gerrymandered districts guaranteed that Speaker John Boehner and his Republican-dominated…
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Has George Zimmerman Won the Media War?
(The Root) — Tuesday, Feb. 26, marked the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old, self-appointed neighborhood-watch captain, who now awaits trial for murder in the second degree. Trayvon would have celebrated his 18th birthday this month. A Million Hoodie March was organized in New York City…
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NRA Chief's Racial Rant Hides Larger Truth
(The Root) — Last week Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, wrote a troubling column for conservative outlet the Daily Caller. In it, the 64-year-old gun-rights advocate painted a horrifying picture of a postapocalyptic world in which African Americans from “south Brooklyn” and Hispanic members of “Latin American drug gangs” were such a…
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Do You Know About the US Drones in Africa?
(The Root) — The legacy of colonialism has saddled the African continent with crippling poverty, widespread hunger and incurable disease. But there is a new threat on the horizon: an era of perpetual war. America’s war on terror was supposed to end, or at least subside, under President Obama’s watchful eye. Withdrawal from Iraq was…
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GOP's Three-Fifths Compromise
(The Root) — The Republican Party learned one crucial lesson from Mitt Romney’s defeat: The only way it can win the White House is to rig the election. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has publicly endorsed a plan for GOP-controlled legislatures in key battleground states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida to alter the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
