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Houston Dad May Not Be Charged in Alleged Shooting of Teen in Daughter’s Room
The Houston father who allegedly shot and killed a 17-year-old boy he caught in his daughter’s bedroom last week may not face charges, an area prosecutor told MyFoxHouston. The prosecutor, Warren Diepraam, said that while a grand jury still must review the case, the unidentified 55-year-old father, of Near Spring, Texas, will unlikely face charges.…
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Teen Allegedly Bites Off Infant Son’s Nose to Stop Crying
USA Today is reporting that a Northern California teenaged father reportedly bit off his infant son’s nose after becoming frustrated by his crying. Joshua Cooper, 18, was arrested Friday at the home he shared with the child’s mother and other family members and charged with suspicion of child cruelty and aggravated mayhem, Fairfield County, Calif.,…
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Quote of the Day: Lord Kitchener on Race
You can read this lyric from Lord Kitchener’s 1953 song “Black or White” in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Listen to the song here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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The Influence Freed Slaves May Have Had on the Boy Abraham Lincoln
“You may remember, as I well do … there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio … It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest…
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8 Sneaky Racial Code Words and Why Politicians Love Them
When Paul Ryan talked about a “real culture problem” in “our inner cities in particular” this week, he wasn’t the first American politician to be slammed for using racially coded language to get a point across. Far from it. Ian Haney López, author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and…
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Scandal Recap: The Murder Capital
Remember Jay Z’s song “Lucifer”? The one with the great Kanye beat from The Black Album about crime and why we do the bad things we do? Well, it’s pretty much the theme song for last night’s episode—demons are all over the place and redemption seems impossible for just about everyone. “No Sun on the…
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Social Media Helps Break the Silence Around Domestic Violence
When aspiring model Mori Montgomery posted photos of the horrific injuries she allegedly sustained at the hands of her boyfriend, she shocked cyberspace. But she may have done more than that. Her courage may play a role in ending the stigma that often silences survivors of domestic violence. Besides actual violence, the silence that accompanies…
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Quote of the Day: Dorothy Dandridge on Work
You can read this quote by Dorothy Dandridge, from a 1954 interview with the New York Post, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Dandridge here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief…
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Why Did My Ancestor Change the Family Name?
My last name is Stradwick. However, my late grandfather, Thomas Stradwick, said that was not our family’s original surname. He said his father, James, changed his last name to Stradwick, for reasons unknown, before he married my great-grandmother Lilly Ferguson of South Carolina. But what he changed his last name from is the mystery. My…
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How the Communal Experience of Music Has Changed
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Professor Guthrie Ramsey Jr. to talk about how music today is made, shared and studied. Ramsey is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and recently published The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
