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Raven-Symoné Goes ‘New Black,’ Doesn’t Want to Be Labeled African American
Raven-Symoné has joined Pharrell Williams in the #NewBlack movement. In a recent conversation with Oprah for Oprah: Where Are They Now? the actress expressed her disdain for labels. “I don’t know where my roots go to. I don’t know how back they go. I don’t know how far back, and I don’t know what country in…
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I Refuse to Let ‘Daddy Issues’ Hold Me Back
I sat at open-mic night with my martini and my legs crossed, wondering exactly how many poems could be written about daddy issues. It seemed as though at every event I had been to, this one and others, there was some girl onstage spilling her heart out into the mic about the emotions and challenges…
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Which Black Man Was Responsible for Burying Bodies at Gettysburg?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 94: How did the war…
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The White Church Should Not Be Silent on the Killing of Black Men by Police
I am a Christian and a black man. My wife and I wife attend a majority-white church in central New Jersey. We are not an anomaly. The few majority-white churches I’ve visited over the past several years had significant sprinkles of black folks in their pews. Our faith has served an important personal, communal and…
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SNL Spoofs Al Sharpton
Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson last night portrayed Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader-turned-MSNBC talk host, as he fumbled his way through a broadcast about the Secret Service lapses, among other issues, Mediaite reports. When asked what’s going on with the Secret Service, he said, “It’s a secret.” Thompson joked that the White House intruder…
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Chicago Man Charged in Death of Beloved Elderly Barber
A 29-year-old Chicago man with a long felony rap sheet has been charged in the death of a popular 88-year-old barber, who was known as a “pillar” of his South Side community, the Chicago Tribune reports. Samuel Higgins was looking to score some money fast, or “hit a lick,” when he and a friend spotted…
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Dallas Ebola Patient in Critical Condition
The condition of a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus in Dallas has turned critical, officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said Saturday, according to the New York Daily News. The man, Thomas Duncan, 42, who arrived at the hospital on Sept. 28, was previously listed in serious but stable condition. The report about his…
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What Martin Taught Us About Relationships
In the 1990s, Fox’s Thursday-night lineup featured a young, black couple for the hip-hop generation attempting to make their relationship work amid a changing world. In the comedy Martin, Martin Payne (played by comedy icon Martin Lawrence) is the loudmouthed brother following his passion at a local radio station. The college-educated Gina Waters (played by Tisha…
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Haiti’s ‘Baby Doc’ Dies at 63
Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier died of a heart attack Saturday at his home in Port-au-Prince, the New York Times reports. He was 63. Michel J. Martelly, the president of Haiti, announced the death in a post on Twitter. He was the son of François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, the feared dictator,…
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CDC: What You Need to Know About Ebola
On Tuesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States was that of a man who traveled from the West African country of Liberia to Dallas in September. And on Friday a person with Ebola-like symptoms was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
