Just days after Donald Sterling was exposed as a racist on secretly recorded audio produced by TMZ, longtime New York talk radio legend and current Sirius XM host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo had what many are now calling his own “Donald Sterling-Al Campanis moment.” Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis’ four decades of MLB service came…

April of 1994 equaled 30 days, from start to finish, of emotional highs and lows for those of African descent. The fourth month of that year saw the start of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi being massacred in the Rwandan genocide. On April 29, South Africa held its first interracial election, in which Nelson Mandela was voted president. And…

Listen carefully and you’ll hear a tiny Southern twang way in the back of Anthony Mackie’s voice. It comes despite 11 years of classes in acting for film, TV and stage. It breaks through his molded diction training from New York’s prestigious Juilliard School. Fragmented roots of New Orleans poke through Mackie’s vocal cords, blooming…

Picture this: A race of people who are cast out by the mainstream because of the way they were born or look or their culture. Those who oppose their existence wish to use them for their own selfish ends, while others simply want them all dead. Among the oppressed number, there rise several factions of…

Comic books haven’t always been a place where African Americans could find characters they related to. Black comic book characters ranged from being barely noticeable and blatantly disrespected to receiving lessened moments of racism from decade to decade.  DC Comics didn’t have a black superhero who could stand on his own until 1977, when Black Lightning and…

Have you ever Googled the terms “racism” and “high school sports”?  Well, if you ever wanted to lose faith in humanity a few degrees more than you may already have, then a brief survey of the year’s most-reported high school sports stories have been about race. Race this, race that. When it comes to the…

Tracey Edmonds never wanted to be on TV. She never dreamed of having cameras beside her face, reflecting wide and tight angles, flashing perfect teeth across the screen. A whiz-kid brainiac since birth, she attended Stanford University at 16 majoring in psycho-biology. Upon graduating at 20, Edmonds opened her own real estate and mortgage firm. But her…

It’s that time of year again. Your favorite time of year, I would imagine. The Super Bowl is what we all look forward to. But the hyped halftime show—the alleged highlight of the NFL Championship for the greater part of its 43-year history—has been a 50-50 viewing option for me over the years.  The new…

They say some people are born into their destiny. They step into the world that their parents create and build their reality. For Demaryius Thomas, reality consisted of being born to a 15-year-old mother and an absent father who joined the Army after high school. Thomas’ early life was the stuff rappers rhyme about and…

The jury on whether life imitates art or vice versa will forever be hung. Celebrities and their work definitely have an impact on how individuals perceive the world. We are wowed by the exploits of athletes, croon along to the angelic voices of singers, marvel at the on-screen personas of our favorite thespians and nod…