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Chris Christie Believes That Harassing and Profiling Black and Latino Communities Kept NYC Safe
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, currently struggling to gain a foothold in Republican presidential-primary polls, decided to throw some red meat to the conservative base in a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, stating that if he were mayor of New York City, he would reinstate the controversial stop-and-frisk law within five minutes of taking…
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Dear Damon Wayans: How Attractive Must a Woman Be to Be Rapeable?
About a year and a half ago, I launched a petition against D.L. Hughley for his deplorable and misogynist remarks about victims of domestic violence. Now another washed-up comedian is making waves, this time for willfully ignorant and dangerous remarks about rape victims. In an appearance on 105.1’s The Breakfast Club on Friday, Damon Wayans…
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Shelter From the Storm: Katrina’s Impact on Houston and Atlanta
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, black New Orleanians quickly scattered across the country—a sister’s house here, a cousin’s couch there, a college roommate’s spare room. More than 175,000 black residents left New Orleans in the year following the storm, according to FiveThirtyEight. Even though the city’s total population has returned to 70 percent of…
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Follow the Money: How New Orleans’ Charter School System Influences Both Economic Development and Injustice
In part 1 of our series on post-Katrina New Orleans’ public education and charter school systems, “‘Like Another Katrina’: The Charter School Debate Fractures New Orleans Along Lines of Race and Class,” The Root took a comprehensive look at the educational, cultural and racial effects of the charter school system, which rapidly expanded in the…
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‘Like Another Katrina’: The Charter School Debate Fractures New Orleans Along Lines of Race and Class
Katrina. The mere mention of the Category 5 monster of a hurricane that barreled down the Gulf Coast and made landfall in the early-morning hours of Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 is enough to retraumatize New Orleans natives who were forced to flee their homes in search of shelter. “The Storm,” as it’s…
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Jury Deadlocks, Mistrial Declared in Police Killing of Jonathan Ferrell
After four days of deliberation, a jury deadlocked in the trial of former Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., Police Officer Randall Kerrick, 27, who was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the 2013 shooting death of 24-year-old former Floridan A&M football player Jonathan Ferrell. The 12-member jury—consisting of eight women (two African American, two Hispanic) and four men (three…
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Enhanced Security at Straight Outta Compton Is Straight Outta Racist Playbook
Straight Outta Compton, the F. Gary Gray biopic about legendary hip-hop pioneers N.W.A, may have defied expectations, with an astounding $59 million at the box office expected its opening weekend, but moviegoers were still treated like “Niggaz Wit Attitudes.” Amid a swiftly growing Black Lives Matter movement—which has ramped up protests as the political cycle…
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The Revolution Is Socialized: Organization ‘Live-Tweets’ Watts Riots on 50th Anniversary
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Watts rebellion (Aug. 11-17, 1965), the California Endowment’s Sons and Brothers Campaign, in partnership with the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles, is “live-tweeting” the uprising, drawing clear parallels between the raw revolution of Watts, a South Los Angeles neighborhood, and its grandchild, the uprising in Ferguson, Mo. It hasn’t been marked with the pageantry…
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‘What the Hell Is Going on in Ferguson?!’ How #MikeMike Changed Our World
It’s hard to believe it’s been one year since then-Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson’s bullets plowed through the body of 19-year-old Michael Brown Jr. One year since the teen’s slain body was left lying in the middle of Canfield Drive in the sweltering heat for four hours, his warm blood trickling down the pavement,…
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Why It’s Dangerous to Say Sandra Bland Didn’t Look Like Someone Who Would Commit Suicide
Can you look at someone and tell that she or he wants to die? In the wake of Sandra Bland’s death, the most vocal reason given for why she didn’t hang herself in a Waller County, Texas, jail cell after being brutalized and arrested by state Trooper Brian Encinia is this: Sandra, who was passionate…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
