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George Zimmerman Says God and Justice Are on His Side
If the moral arc of the universe really did bend toward justice, I would be reporting on George Zimmerman’s incarceration for one of the numerous crimes he’s committed since he gunned down unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on that rainy night in Sanford, Fla. Instead he’s in the news for a disturbing interview in which he…
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‘I Go to UVA,’ Martese Johnson’s Cry of Millennial Disbelief
Earlier this week I participated in a PBS NewsHour Twitter chat on race and millennials. We discussed members of the University of Oklahoma’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter, a white fraternity founded in the antebellum South, being caught on video singing one of their traditional songs about hanging “niggers” from trees. The chat was partially built…
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$65,000,000 for a New Private Jet, Creflo Dollar? Negro, Please
On the streets of any hood in the United States, Creflo Dollar, the kingpin behind World Changers Church International, would be called a hustler. Behind the pulpit, however, he’s called pastor, and if that’s not a sin, I don’t know what else to call it. Dollar, who made headlines in 2012 for allegedly assaulting his…
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Blame It on Hip-Hop: Why Morning Joe Came to SAE’s Rescue
As MSNBC continues its obvious attempts to draw conservatives away from Fox News, Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have fully embraced their roles as the Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin of the network. Mocking rapper Waka Flocka Flame for canceling a scheduled performance at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat house at the…
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SAE, White Thugs and American Traditions
The Klansmen of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity have exposed to the world what many of us already know: Racism is part and parcel of white America’s most beloved traditions. By now, most people have read about SAE’s University of Oklahoma chapter and its little diddy about hanging “n—gers from trees.” There has, of course, been…
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The Contradictions of #Selma50
My pilgrimage to Selma, Ala., began at 2:30 Saturday morning. After loading up my tiny rental car, I traveled five-and-a-half hours on zero sleep to be among the number of people bearing witness to the commemoration of one of the most bloody, transformative events in civil rights history. Fifteen miles outside town, I stopped at…
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Why Malcolm X Should Be Recognized in Selma, Ala., This Weekend
The 50th anniversary of the assassination of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) came and went on Feb. 21 of this year. And just as in other years when the date of Malcolm’s assassination came around, his name trended for a few hours and then the stifling silence rolled back in, erasing his name from the…
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What Happened When a Handsome, White Actor Shed a Tear Over ‘Glory’
There is nothing—nothing—like seeing a handsome, straight, cisgender, wealthy, able-bodied white man cry to remind us how horrific black people had it during the civil rights movement. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But that was the gist of the headline over at Gawker christening actor Chris Pine the “face of civil rights.” Why? Because he shed…
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Serena Williams Returns to the Indian Wells Tournament Unbought, Unbossed and Unbound
Tennis supernova Serena Williams’ refusal to be subdued and modified within the confines of a traditionally white sport has consistently made her a target of bigotry. It was on display in 2001 at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in California. Racist slurs and taunts were allegedly hurled at her father, Richard Williams, amid accusations that…
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Look, Stacey Dash, We Thought You Were Victim-Blaming Sexual Assault Survivors Because You Were Victim-Blaming Them
Stacey Dash has once again proved that Clueless was more than just a movie for her; it’s a perpetual state of mind. During a segment last week on Fox’s Outnumbered, Dash and her co-hosts decided to weigh in on a national sorority organization’s move to ban members on the campus of the University of Virginia from…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
