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H&M South Africa Closes All Stores After Activists Trash Stores Over ‘Monkey’ Ad
Updated Sunday, Jan. 14, 2017, 9:15 a.m. EST: H&M has decided to temporarily close all of its stores in South Africa amid protests that have seen several of its stores ransacked by protesters upset at a recent racist ad. CNN reports that H&M has 17 locations in South Africa. “We continue to monitor the situation…
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Eric Clapton Whitesplains His Racism. He Even Had a Black Girlfriend
I had no idea that Eric Clapton was once an avowed (rather than just a plain ole complicit) racist. In fact, I thought all those soulful white singers/rock ’n’ rollers from England loved black men, especially those who gave birth to their beloved (and quite fruitful—especially for white men) rock music. But, uh, not Eric…
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Trump to the Poor: You Must Work for Your Medicaid, Even Though 60 Percent of You Already Do
In more of the president’s heartless-rich-white-man shtick (except it’s obvious that he’s really all of these things), the Trump administration on Thursday announced that it will allow state-run Medicaid programs to require “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients to work, an action already co-signed by 10 states. The new rules mandate that those who receive the health insurance…
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What’s Gucci? Dapper Dan and His New Harlem Atelier, That’s What
After what seems like years of waiting (though it turned out to be months), Harlem legend Dapper Dan has finally opened his Gucci-backed atelier. On Wednesday, Dapper Dan—born Daniel Day—posted on Twitter: “A sign of the times. For the 1st time in history, a major luxury brand store has opened in #Harlem: @Gucci by @DapperDanHarlem.…
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Michigan State University Receives Almost $1,500,000 to Create Online Slavery Database
Michigan State University will receive nearly $1.5 million to create a new online database that will allow folks to navigate the records of millions of enslaved people and their descendants, a boon for historians and African Americans who are interested in knowing more about their ancestry. Michigan State recently announced a $1.47 million grant from…
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Tavis Smiley Announces New TV Deal and 5-City Tour on ‘What Is Acceptable’ in the Workplace
After being unceremoniously canceled by PBS in December amid sexual-misconduct allegations, author and talk show host Tavis Smiley announced in a video and press release on Facebook Monday that he is going to debut a new inspirational show online and on the Word Network, which also features programs by Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer and others.…
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What’s Genius? The Making of Yeethoven II, the Kanye West, Beethoven Orchestral Mashup
“I personally don’t like that word and just avoid it in general,” says Johan, the co-creator and arranger of Yeethoven II, premiering at New York City’s Lincoln Center on Jan. 18. He’s talking about the word “genius” and whether it applies to Kanye West, a term the rapper-producer has bandied about—about himself—for years. “I think…
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And Just Like That, We Turned Pain Into Power
After seeing shots of the little boy in that heinous H&M shirt that declared him the “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle,” I almost immediately began to see images of him remixed and reimagined. All day, new looks came down my timeline—not of this little boy in a shirt that degraded him, but with spinning crowns…
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Black Dresses, Hardly Any Black Winners … So Oprah Saved the Day
Although it was all-black everything—from the carpet to the attire to Oprah Winfrey’s black-ass table—black actors and actresses didn’t fare too well at the 2018 Golden Globes on Sunday night. Sterling K. Brown, the man who makes men cry, won for best actor in a TV drama for This Is Us, but his melanated peers…
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‘Sloppy Steve’ Bannon Backtracks, Offers Groveling Apology to Trump Daddy
I guess, between the millions in soft money reportedly being yanked from under him and the biggest coattails he’s ever ridden publicly going bye-bye, “Sloppy Steve” Bannon (President Donald Trump’s words, not mine) has tapped out and apologized for statements attributed to him in a new biography of the president, Fire and Fury: Inside the…
