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A Black Woman’s Search for Her Chinese Roots
During their childhood spent in Harlem, retired NBC Universal executive Paula Madison and her two brothers knew they were different. On strolls through their predominantly black neighborhood with their mother, Nell Vera Lowe—who was half Jamaican and half Chinese—their obvious Asian heritage made them magnets for stares and questions about their ethnicity. Madison remembers her…
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Spirit Airlines Responds to a Passenger’s Claim of Racism
Editor’s note: In a Grapevine blog earlier today, we recounted the experience of a passenger on board Spirit Airlines, who claimed to have seen an African-American passenger denied a seat and sent to the back of the plane when a white man refused to move. Spirit Airlines contacted us about the incident and was insistent…
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Rage Is the Right Response to What Happened in Ferguson
On Saturday a police officer shot a teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. On Sunday the world knew the teen’s name, and by Monday Ferguson was on fire. The images were jarring, and rightfully so—the appropriate backdrop to an oppressive police environment that isn’t new in a sleepy railroad town, 70 percent of whose residents are…
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Why Diapers Matter When It Comes to Personal Responsibility and Poverty
The term “personal responsibility” has long served as one of the favorite rallying cries of conservatives. Want to rile up an audience? Shout about how lack of personal responsibility among the poor is hurting hardworking, taxpaying “real” Americans. As a testament to the outsized role “personal responsibility” has long played in debates about poverty, it…
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Pregnant Woman Claims Ferguson, Mo., Police Assaulted Her
Pregnant protester Mikiesha Wickerson claims she was thrown to the ground and maced by police in Ferguson, Mo., where there has been unrest since Saturday’s fatal police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown. Wickerson told KMOV that she and her cousins were yelling at police in their unmoving and closed car when police wearing riot gear…
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Unarmed Black Man, Ezell Ford, Shot by Police in Los Angeles
While the country is still reeling from the news and aftermath of the fatal shooting by police of unarmed Ferguson, Mo., teen Michael Brown, KTLA is reporting that a 25-year-old mentally challenged man was shot and killed in Los Angeles while lying on the ground. His family says he was complying with officers. He was also…
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After Michael Brown’s Killing, Echoes of the ’65 Watts Rebellion
The killing of Missouri teenager Michael Brown by police, followed by two consecutive nights of racial upheaval in his hometown of Ferguson, coincides with the anniversary of one of the nation’s biggest civil disturbances. Forty-nine years ago this week, Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood erupted into a weeklong urban rebellion in the aftermath of a confrontation…
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Miss Black USA: More Than Just a Beauty Pageant
Miss Black Colorado, Jasmine Alexander, is the owner of this year’s Miss Black USA crown and a prize package that includes a $5,000 scholarship and a trip to Africa. But hers wasn’t the only victory in this atypical beauty competition, which was held Sunday night at the Theatre for Performing Arts at the University of…
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What Exactly Can a White Man Safely Say About a Black Woman’s Hair?
So a while ago, I (a white man without much hair to speak of—I trim it to about a quarter-inch guard) was behind a black woman with a magnificent Afro in line at a coffee shop, and I said to her that I really liked her hair. She thanked me very graciously, but I wonder—was…
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The Miss Black USA 2014 Pageant: Photos
Nicole L. Cvetnic is The Root’s multimedia editor and producer. The competition, held Aug. 10, 2014, at the Theatre for Performing Arts at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., featured 25 contestants from across the nation. A distinguished panel of judges chose 26-year-old Jasmine Alexander to be the new Miss Black USA…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
