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Blast Colt 45: New Media, Same Old Tricks
Once upon a time, getting urban youths hooked on your product was a fairly straightforward affair: Hire a popular black icon to be your pitchman. Get some half-nekkid models to gyrate around him. Throw up a few billboards in black neighborhoods, run some ads in the black press and black radio, etc. It worked a…
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Throwing D.C. Under the Bus
The White House is still dealing with the fallout from congressional budget negotiations that barely averted a government shutdown: angry progressives speaking out around the country, D.C. Mayor Vince Gray getting arrested during protests, and hundreds of thousands of Washington, D.C., residents feeling the sting of political betrayal. In order to end the budget stalemate,…
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Why Black Folks Love Charlie Sheen
There’s a new celebrity crackhead on the scene, and some folks can barely contain their glee. It’s as if all of black Twitter and Facebook strained its collective neck to watch this 50-car pileup that is Charlie Sheen explode all over the mass media. “What if @charliesheen has done so much drugs, he’s come out…
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'Brick City' Documentary Season 2: Real Time With Cory Booker
Minutes after snowpocalyptic flurries descended on the nation’s capital this week, clogging traffic and leading to hellish commutes, someone summoned Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker via Twitter: “@CoryBooker how do we draft you to be Mayor of DC?” tweeted ABC Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. “How about just during snowstorms? Can you call Mayor…
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The McEducation of the Negro
Something wasn’t right at the high school that Darwin Bridgers’ son attends, so he sat in on the class to see for himself. All morning long, the instructor at the Washington, D.C., charter school pointed to a list of ground rules, a detailed list of rewards and punishments posted on a wall near the front…
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The Great Urban Communication Divide
In a long and thoughtful Washington City Paper profile last week, veteran journalist Courtland Milloy was hailed as the “crotchety grandpa the city needs.” The writer, Rend Smith, gave the Washington Post columnist credit for being among the few mainstream writers tuned in to the racially polarized passions that toppled 39-year-old incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty…
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The Myth of Black-on-Black Violence
This year’s Black History Month was a particularly bloody one in Shelby County, S.C. Sergio Leary, Ja’cole Wilson, Karon Barrow and Leon Thurman Jr., all young people in their 20s, were all shot dead, according to local news reports. The Shelby Star’s analysis of the burst of violence, hit on all the usual crime reporting…
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Wale — Rhymes With Gay
By any objective measure — moral, legal, ethical, the eyes of his horrified mother — the hip-hopper Wale screwed up. Management for the gifted artist best known for his duet with Lady Gaga contracted him to perform at D.C. Black Pride, a 20-year-old festival—for 45 minutes and $18,000. At the last minute, his team backed…
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How Real Estate Became the New Volunteer Slavery
”Real estate is the working man’s only path to financial security.” —My friend Sam No bank in their right mind would give us the loan. But it was 2005, top of the Florida housing bubble, and banks were freely handing out dice to commoners. The historic West Palm Beach home had a plaster relief sculpture…
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'Let's Move'? Try Peer Pressure
By New Years Eve of 2001, I’d bought a house, had a new baby and got married in a short, six-month burst. I was in a new neighborhood in the middle of Washington, D.C., where I was too lazy and too scared to run on my own. When I casually mentioned to my neighbor, Von…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
