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When Are Haitians Looters and When Are They Just Hungry?
An arresting Damon Winter photo of a Haitian child graces the cover of the Sunday New York Times. A boy of about 10 wearing a bright red, oversized Polo shirt is caught mid-stride by the camera, dashing through the streets of Port-au-Prince, eyes gazing purposely ahead, gripping a white plastic bag. The caption gives a…
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Pat Robertson and Haiti’s Deal With the Devil
The Haitians I knew at my South Florida high school were not exactly the devil-dealing types. Thousands of them had arrived by boat in the early 1990s following Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s (first) ouster. Most knew little English and had not been introduced to such luxuries as deodorant or a high-top fade. Their clothes were out of…
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And We Shopped Happily Ever After
“Can we buy this, Mom?” Wandering through the grocery store last week, my 6-year-old daughter, Maven, spied a can of chicken soup. This wasn’t just any old chicken soup; this was the Disney Princess edition, with pasta rendered in “cool shapes,” including a castle, Cinderella slipper, carriage and crown. I challenge any red-blooded American kindergartner…
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Mira! Coping with Black Hair’s Dominican Invasion
I recently spent a highly caffeinated day with my friend Glynn Jackson as he put the final touches on preparations for the Golden Scissors Awards, the black hairstyling competition which, over the last 17 years, he has built into the Oscars of black hair. It was a frantic day with him behind the wheel, his…
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The Oscars of Black Hair
Natalie Hopkinson is a Washington, D.C.-based author whose current projects deal with the arts, gender and public life. She is the author of Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City. Follow her on Twitter. The 2009 competition at the Washington Convention Center will be fierce among black stylists to see who will take home…
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Don't Hate, Congratulate!
So in the pool report for the Obama’s first White House State dinner, Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson tried to call out our fellow TEWW blogger and Pulitzer-prize winning culture critic Robin Givhan for knowing just the right question to ask White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers: From Henderson’s pool report: “Desiree Rogers arrived at about 6:53…
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Did the New York Times Pimp the White House?
According to reports, the New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor just inked a seven-figure deal to write a volume about the Obamas. The New York Observer reported that this was partly due to the access to the White House she received as a representative of the New York Times: “It could not be determined whether…
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The (Not So) New World Order
How “explicit” could the images be? Queen Elizabeth II herself honored the artist as a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Yinka Shonibare MBE, the Brit-Nigerian art world star, toast of two continents, was having a mid-career retrospective at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. So my kindergartener and I sailed past the…
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What’s Islam Got to Do With It?
Long before bloggers were given front-row seats at Milan Fashion Week, or the president took questions from a blogger at the White House, two writers from the online Underground News Network scored press passes to cover the trial of the D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad. The Web site’s editors followed some teachings of Islam and…
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The Death of Newsroom Swagger
In a bin in my attic filled with sentimental piles of junk, there is a yellowed copy of a Washington Post essay by Henry Allen. The 1997 piece, “A Capsule History of Psychiatry,” isn’t so much an article as it is a freestyle rumination about the rise of Prozac. I vaguely remember in college experiencing…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
