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A Peace of Gold
A lot of things recently turned 50. You might recall them. Madonna – yawn. The Dodgers – thank God they haven’t abandoned Los Angeles like another professional team, which shall remain nameless. The Grammy Awards – the crystal ball simply didn’t see rap and hip-hop coming and staying. Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat…
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Good Luck Finding The Reality in Black Reality TV
The latest entry in the celebrity-driven, black family, reality TV phenomenon is Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love, which debuted last week, oddly enough, on Oxygen, a channel better-known for Bad Girls Club. For those who don’t follow professional sports the celebrity in this series is Deion Sanders, who was a bona fide superstar in…
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Democrats, Down with the Oppressor?
In domestic politics during this 2008 election year, Democrats are positioning themselves as the party of the “underdog”, the poor and the dis-empowered, and paint the Republicans as the party of the wealthy and the power elite. I find this ironic given that in at least one aspect of the international arena the roles seem…
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Africa's Looming Catastrophe — Not Darfur, but Close
The biggest civil war in Africa’s history is looming, and the world naps. (The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is awake, but groggy). The sad fact is that we, in the West, are only roused to Africa’s ills after the fact. I think we like it that way. Mourning failed states is a lot easier…
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Dr. King's Challenge
What would Dr. King say to us today? We have a tendency to sanitize his memory, to remember the Dr. King who fought the evil of state-mandated segregation, the Dr. King who marched on Washington in 1963, the Dr. King with whom all Americans say they (now) agree. But there was another Dr. King –…
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What they were doing. What it meant.
BARBARA BUSH: Leading ‘awful garbage strikes.’ This was a very interesting time to be living in Washington. The Vietnam War was debated at all the dinner parties, and the whole country worried about racial and student unrest. Here is part of my diary entry from April 5, 1968, to show a little of what it…
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Clash of The Waves: Feminism in Crisis
This exchange followed a blog post by Rebecca Walker on The Huffington Post. Anonymous: I disagree with your assessment of this election. I think you are really diminishing how much of a threat Hillary is to the male power structure in America. I have never seen the media make the kind of brazen, non-stop sexist…
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The Perilous Politics of Hair
A strange and sad thing happened to me on my job search this year. I missed out on an opportunity not because of my skills, but because of my hair. I was looking for a little extra money for college this past February, so I applied for a job at my old place of employment,…
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Is Nas Hip-Hop's Randall Kennedy?
Browsing books at a Barnes & Noble in south San Francisco before dinner the other night, I saw a book called Sellout between the aisles, obviously positioned to be noticed. I saw the title of the hardcover, but it was the author’s name that drew my attention: Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law professor who also…
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I'm Black and for Hillary.Get Over it.
I am a Hillary Clinton supporter. There, I said it. And I’m tired of the dirty looks I get when I out myself. Why is it so surprising that someone like me – a black, educated, progressive chick – would put my support behind Hillary Clinton? Oh, I know. I’m black, so, of course, I…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
