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What Rodney King's Woes Say About Us
(The Root) — Monday morning I was sitting on an exercise bike in a hotel gym, listening to a drum-and-bass song from the ’90s while I pedaled furiously and watched the morning TV news on mute. That’s when I learned that Rodney King had drowned. The song Horizon, by LTJ Bukem, samples parts of Maya…
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Behind the Lower Unemployment Rates
Some of the ways that we measure the economy just don’t square with our daily reality. Take the unemployment rate, announced to great fanfare each month. A lot of people think it measures the percentage of Americans who don’t have jobs. But that would be too simple. The Bureau of Labor Statistics explains the measurement…
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A 'Hu-Manifesto' for a Post-Trayvon World
The Trayvon Martin case has revealed as fallacies the memes of a “postracial” America and “post-black” identity. But that doesn’t excuse the ridiculous amount of puffery and ego-tripping, as well as harmful stereotyping and merciless marketing, done in the name of justice for Trayvon — and done in defense of the man who killed him…
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The Long Walk to Justice — and Compassion Fatigue
Reflecting on the death of Trayvon Martin, blogger and activist Farai Chideya asks in a blog entry, “Where do we go from here?” She says it’s easy to work up ire about individual cases, but harder to work on systemic change. The family and scores of people across the nation have been hammering the Sanford,…
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A Matter of Faith: Black Voters and the GOP
On Super Tuesday, Republican voters get a chance to stand up for the candidate they believe in. But do black voters feel they have the same range of choices as white voters? African Americans are a bit of a paradox: arguably socially conservative on the issues, but loyal to the Democratic Party. “I think it’s…
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For Michelle Obama, What Is Wrong With Strong?
In blog entry at CNN, author Farai Chideya tackles the stereotyping of Michelle Obama as an angry black woman. She says that strong first ladies have had one set of challenges, while the first African-American first lady faces another: the difference between being “strong” and being “angry.” … Strength is not anger, but anger can…
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The Myth of the 99 Percent
For some people it was 9/11. For me it was Hurricane Katrina. “It” is the moment when you realize that the safety net you thought was beneath you has been shredded, the implicit promise of the American dream shattered. One image that haunts me is a starving dog I tossed a sandwich during my reporting…
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Getting to Post-Post-Racial
“Let me just get these dead flowers out of the way.” That was my cousin speaking. A wide cup on her kitchen table was filled with dried and wilted blossoms. She lives in Arizona, a state roiled by debates over immigration. As a journalist, I came to cover those debates, and a few free hours…
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The M Word: Talking Marriage and Monogamy in the Time of Tiger Woods
“Monogamy is inherently unnatural in our species,” Dr. Julie Holland says without equivocation. She’s a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, and author of the recent memoir Weekends at Bellevue. Metaphors like being “sex-crazed,” “crazy about you” or even “crazy in love” don’t seem so nutty when you…
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#themonogamydebate
I have 3,800 Twitter followers and asked them if they would discuss issues of relationship and fidelity for publication. I asked these specific four questions: Question 1: Is it really true that being rich, famous, a pro athlete changes the game so that a man MUST be expected to cheat? Question 2: If men at…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
