Stanley K. Burrell, better known as MC Hammer, and his wife, Stephanie, are being slapped with a federal lawsuit for failing to file 1996 and 1997 income taxes, TMZ reports. The duo apparently racked up a $798,033.48 bill but might not have such an easy time paying it off, since the rapper’s prime is long…

Cartoonist Ted Rall is dealing with the backlash he created after he posted a controversial cartoon depicting the president with seemingly apelike features to the Daily Kos site, a liberal political blog. According to The Grio, the Daily Kos pounced on the artist, slamming him for the drawing and threatening to rescind his publishing privileges.…

Three white male students have slapped a black female Minneapolis Community and Technical College professor with a racial-discrimination complaint, causing the professor to be formally reprimanded by school officials for creating a “hostile learning environment,” Salon reports. Shannon Gibney was teaching her class, Introduction to Mass Communication, when the students reportedly reacted in a hostile…

Over Thanksgiving break, three basketball players from Edison Tech High School in Rochester, N.Y., were arrested for disorderly conduct. But the teens and their basketball coach are saying they did nothing wrong. According to WROC-TV, the teenagers were waiting downtown with about 16 other teammates for a school bus to take them to a scrimmage…

Some residents of south Baton Rouge, La.—a predominantly affluent and white area of the city—want to secede from the city and create a new one named “St. George,” the Raw Story reports.  A study by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber has already concluded that incorporating a new city would most likely end in Baton Rouge…

An Olympic gold medal won by African-American track-and-field legend Jesse Owens is being auctioned off, the Associated Press reports.  The medal, won at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, is currently held by SCP Auctions, one of the largest auctioneers and private sellers of important sports memorabilia, and represents a significant part of African-American—and world—history. When…

Fashion has been used many a time before as an excuse to wear racist costumes, like blackface, beyond Halloween. It looks as if the fashion industry—well, some of those associated with it, anyway—is at it again. Elle France Beauty Editor Jeanne Deroo posted a picture on Instagram in which she is in full-on blackface, complete…

A new report commissioned by Barneys distances the store from the New York Police Department frisks that have both the business and the police force reeling from accusations of racial discrimination, the Associated Press reports. According to the review, the store did not have a “written or unwritten” policy to profile its customers of color…

A group of five men who were imprisoned as teenagers for a brutal rape they did not commit are looking to have a conversation with a second victim of the real perpetrator in hopes of settling their lawsuit against the city of New York, the Huffington Post reports. The Central Park Five, as they are…

And once again someone has botched Kerry Washington’s appearance on a magazine cover by lightening her skin a wee bit too much (or a lot). In the December/January issue of Lucky magazine we see an overedited, nearly unrecognizable Washington, with lighter, frosty-looking skin and narrower, thinner features.  Twitter didn’t take long to jump on the…