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R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Last week, I was a guest on NPR’s News and Notes, where the topic of conversation was how to address the President. A few days before that, a guest had repeatedly referred to him as “Barack,” and the show got a bunch of angry e-mails complaining that the guest in question—black, male, about the same…
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A Seat For A Lady (And Others)
I was in criminal court yesterday, waiting for a hearing to start. (I suppose I should clarify here that this was work-related and not, thankfully, personal….) One of the lawyers who’d come to observe at the hearing was waiting with the rest of the press for the court administrators to open the door. It was…
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Truth Hurts?
Your best friend just bought leather pants. She’s been saving up to buy them for a couple of months. She has the Big Unveiling planned next week at a party where a guy she’s interested in getting to know better will be, and she’s hoping the new outfit will catch his eye. A few days…
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Got Bank?
In this economy, having a well-off friend who constantly says “I’ll get it” when the check arrives after dinner, or the movie tickets have to be paid for or you both spot a really cute bracelet but only one of you can afford it sounds like a little slice of heaven. But after awhile, it…
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Are All Those Your Kids? (the Sequel)
Nadya Suleman, the single, 33 year-old mother of 14 children conceived by in vitro fertilization, will probably get asked this a lot as soon as they’re all able to move out and about together. But you don’t have to be a mother of mega-multiples to get strangers’ questions—sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes not—as to whether the cluster…
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Are All Those Your Kids (the Sequel)
Nadya Suleman, the single, 33 year-old mother of 14 children conceived by in vitro fertilization, will probably get asked this a lot as soon as they’re all able to move out and about together. But you don’t have to be a mother of mega-multiples to get strangers’ questions—sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes not—as to whether the cluster…
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Too Much Information!
As they teach us in kindergarten, sharing is good. Cookies. Crayons. Blankies. I’m all with it. But there is such a thing as too much sharing—especially when its in the form of information about you that I don’t really need to know. So in homage to that virally popular Facebook tag, wherein people share 25…
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Me, You, Colds, Flu…
We’re entering into the thick of cold and flu season, and it doesn’t take somone who is super germaphobic (remember Jack Nicholson’s character, Melvin in As Good As It Gets? He used a FRESH BAR OF SOAP every time he washed his hands!) to be a little uneasy. We don’t have to do a Full…
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Are Those Really Your Kids?
Sometimes people are well-intentioned but need to think before they speak. Comparing children they’re standing right in front of you (“the older one is really cute! her sister must be at that awkward age”), questioning their ancestry (“are they mixed?”), commenting on their hue or hair (see “are they mixed”?), asking if they’re a blended…
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Ashes To Ashes
Been to any good funerals or memorial services lately? Seems as if the best ones give comfort to the living by doing a good job of remembering the dearly departed. The worst ones? Where the people speaking clearly did not know the person about whom they were speaking very well. (Or at all.) So if…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
