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…

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…

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…

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…

If someone had told me six years ago that Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—the founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—would speak out against police brutality and anti-black racism with more conviction than the nation’s first black president, I would have laughed in that person’s face. But that’s exactly what’s happened. Speaking at their annual…

Updated Jan. 29, 2015: In fewer than five days, more than $1 million has been raised for Motts Hall Bridges Academy; that’s close to an IndieGoGo record! The initial goal was $100,000 to send MHBA students to Harvard University for a visit. Once it reached $350,000, it was determined by Principal Lopez and Humans of…

Listening to light-skinned black women talk about colorism is, for some people, comparable to listening to white people talk about racism: like nails on a chalkboard, or Charlie Brown’s teacher. Unfortunately, some aspects of Light Girls—the problematic Bill Duke-produced documentary that premiered Monday night on OWN—probably did nothing to disabuse them of that notion. Without…

Following the heinous attacks on satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo and Paris kosher supermarket Hyper Casher last week that left 17 people dead, Afro-French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala—widely known in France by his first name—was arrested Wednesday after a controversial Facebook post led police to charge that he was an “apologist for terrorism.” Dieudonné, who was…

If you are a “good cop” in the United States who has knowledge of what you perceive to be police misconduct or brutality, yet do nothing, then you are not only perpetuating cycles of mistrust and cynicism in communities of color toward law enforcement, but also aiding and abetting the extrajudicial killing of people around…

Editor’s note: In an interview with ABC’s Linsey Davis, Phylicia Rashad said that she never said “forget those women.” Instead, the Tony Award-winning actress claims that she said, “It’s not about these women.” Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman insists that Rashad did, in fact, say “forget these women” but that the intent has been misconstrued. “[Rashad]…