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Black Women Face Difficult Odds Dealing With Breast Cancer
In September 2012, Sabrina Fields was in the middle of one of those moments where everything—work, love life, family, future—seemed to be assured. Even ideal. Then 32, Fields had just finished a master’s degree while working full time. She was a highly valued employee in the finance division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.…
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Jahi’s Family Reflects Deep Mistrust of End-of-Life Decisions
Anyone following the case of Jahi McMath, the California teenager declared brain-dead after an operation at an Oakland, Calif.-area children’s hospital went awry, awoke Monday to substantive news. After weeks of legal wrangling, the girl was transferred out of the hospital Sunday to an undisclosed facility. But beyond the emotionally wrenching details of the McMath…
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’Tis the Season for Black Nonprofits to Suffer
For Thembi Duncan, it seemed like the kind of opportunity best described as golden. A popular Washington, D.C., radio talk show wanted Duncan—the new producing artistic director of the African Continuum Theatre Company—for an interview on the air. As recently as 2011, the African Continuum, once billed as D.C.’s only professional black theater company, had…
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Black Legislators Want Your Voting Rights Back
When Rep. Alicia Reece—a Democrat representing Cincinnati in the Ohio state legislature—hears people say the next big political event in the Buckeye State won’t materialize until the 2016 presidential election is underway, she wonders what political planet they inhabit. In 2012, Reece saw conservative political operatives erect a billboard in her neighborhood that claimed to…
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In the Shadow of Newtown, a Father Grieves and Fights
When Hartford, Conn., police arrived on the scene, they found Shane Oliver lying on the ground. The 20-year-old had been shot twice in the back. One bullet had pierced Oliver’s muscle and bone, perforated his heart and lungs and pushed its way out of the right side of his chest. Two-and-a-half hours later, Oliver—a young…
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Racism Linked to Infant Mortality and Learning Disabilities
On the long list of health disparities that vex and disproportionately affect the lives of African Americans—diabetes, cancer and obesity among them—one of the earliest and, it turns out, most significant, may be just when a black child is born. A pair of Emory University studies released this year have connected the large share of…
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Let’s Remember—Mandela Was a Revolutionary
Watching the world mourn the loss of Nelson Mandela is an experience at turns uplifting and incredibly odd. In the first few hours of coverage after his death at age 95 on Thursday, there were the obligatory references to Mandela having “gone home” after leading his nation to a “unified” and higher state. Here, said…
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Haitians Are Dying at Sea Trying to Reach the US
On Nov. 18, in the nearly 500-mile stretch of the Caribbean that sits between Haiti and the United States mainland, boaters commanding small vessels awoke to a dire marine forecast that predicted “hazardous seas,” “dangerous rip currents” and winds capable of producing 12-foot waves. Small vessels, it said, should not leave harbor. But for the…
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McBride Shooter Used Shotgun Named 'The Persuader'
The story of Theodore Wafer—a white, suburban Detroit man charged in connection with the Nov. 2 shooting death of unarmed black teen Renisha McBride—has all the elements of an American tragedy: a shooter and victim of different races, living on either side of the suburban-urban divide, in a state with a permissive self-defense code backed…
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Theodore Wafer Charged in Renisha McBride Shooting
On Friday, Theodore P. Wafer, a white, suburban Detroit airport worker charged in connection with the Nov. 2 shooting death of Renisha McBride, ceased to be an inconspicuous American. Standing before Michigan District Court Judge Mark J. Plawecki with eyes fixed and hands clasped tightly below his waist, the 54-year-old Wafer had an expression that…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
