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Former NFL Coach Dennis Green Dies at 67
Former NFL coach Dennis Green, who led the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals over 13 seasons, died Thursday night from complications of cardiac arrest, according to ESPN. He was 67. In 10 seasons with the Vikings, he led the team to eight playoff appearances and reached the NFC Championship Game twice, in 1998 and 2000.…
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The 8 Wokest White People We Know
#Woke is having a moment. As The Root contributor Lawrence Ware notes, because of police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, “The masses of black folks who were lulled to sleep by economic opportunity have now awoken to the fact that race is, and will remain, a central part of the black experience.” But…
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Prince Stopped Cursing in His Music Because of Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali, who died Friday, was one of the most inspirational figures in the world, both inside and out of the boxing ring. His words and deeds were a call to action for many, but it was the words he didn’t use that led Prince to stop cursing in his music. The artist known for some of…
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Prince Wrote a Slow Jam About Donald Trump and It Is Glorious
We all know that Prince was a brilliant songwriter who could make anything—from casual sex to partying down before the nuclear apocalypse—sound cool. That skill even applies to loathsome politicians like Donald Trump. Among the many musical treasures he left us is a song called “Donald Trump (Black Version),” which he penned for R&B group…
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No Jail Time for Ex-NYPD Officer Who Killed Akai Gurley; Instead, He’ll Serve 800 Hours of Community Service
Peter Liang, the former New York City police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley, was sentenced Tuesday to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service, according to the New York Post. The judge in the case, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun, also reduced the…
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Spirit Awards Honor Black Actors, 1st Transgender Woman
Yo, Academy Awards, this is how it’s done. At Saturday night’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, which recognize the best in indie films, three of the four acting awards went to black people, with Beasts of No Nation stars Abraham Attah (Best Male Lead) and Idris Elba (Best Supporting Male) winning alongside Tangerine breakout Mya Taylor (Best Supporting…
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LeBron James Is Not Even Close to Being the Greatest of All Time. Here Are 6 Reasons
Every time LeBron James makes it to the NBA Finals, there’s always a faction of the NBA fandom trying to make the case that LeBron should be considered the greatest of all time. At which point, longtime basketball fans—who aren’t from Cleveland or Miami—roll their eyes and tell those basketball dilettantes to get on YouTube…
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5 Things You Should Know About Trevor Noah
When Comedy Central announced Monday that South African comedian Trevor Noah would replace Jon Stewart as the next host of The Daily Show, the collective response around the country seemed to be “Trevor who?” After all, the 31-year-old comic only joined the show as a regular correspondent in December and has appeared three times since.…
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SXSW: How Black Twitter Is Changing the Narrative of Black Stories
When the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown landed on the front page of the New York Times last year, it was a game-changing moment in the evolution of black Twitter, particularly in how social media was forcing mainstream news media to look at the way they portrayed African Americans. “Through the posting of two photos and a hashtag,…
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Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show Is the Black Talk Show We’ve Been Waiting For
Last week, Larry Wilmore—host of Comedy Central’s new late-night gig The Nightly Show—began his monologue with this: “Man, all of the good bad-race stuff happened already. Seriously. There’s none left. We’re done.” But anyone who’s been paying attention to the fast-changing news cycle these days knows that Wilmore’s razor-sharp comedic timing couldn’t have come at a…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
