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Identity Conflicts Aren’t Just for Mixed People. I’m Black and I Have Them, Too
I wish there were an option for “It’s complicated” when I’m talking about who I am and where I’m from. No, I’m not physically racially ambiguous in a way that makes people ask endless questions about my ethnicity, demand to know my heritage or call me exotic. I am, in fact, very black. I’ll never…
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A White Woman Wants to Get Rid of Her Inner George Zimmerman
In his remarks regarding the George Zimmerman verdict last summer, President Obama challenged Americans to “wring as much bias” from themselves as possible. We need to do “some soul-searching,” Obama advised the nation. Amid all the media coverage of the Zimmerman and now the Michael Dunn verdicts, I’m left wondering if we aren’t forgetting to…
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‘El Chapo’ Guzman: US to Push for Extradition
Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was the stuff of modern-day legend, eluding law enforcement for nearly 13 years. But that ended Saturday, when he was arrested without incident at a hotel in Mexico’s Pacific beach town of Mazatlan, in his home state of Sinaloa, CNN reports. He was apprehended in a joint operation of…
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Michael Sam Is Ready to Talk Football
When the University of Missouri’s hot NFL prospect Michael Sam announced recently that he was gay, it was all anyone wanted to talk to him about. Now, days after the announcement, it’s still all anyone wants to discuss. But he’s ready to talk football, according to the Huffington Post. “I wish you’d say, ‘Hey Michael…
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Minority Heroes Deprived of Medal of Honor—Until Now
In an effort to correct possible acts of bias that spanned three wars, President Barack Obama will bestow the Medal of Honor on 24 Army veterans in the aftermath of a congressionally mandated review, designed to ensure that eligible recipients were not bypassed due to prejudice, the Associated Press reports. The ceremony will honor veterans,…
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NJ Man Freed After Police Dash Cam Shows Abuse, Cops Indicted
Thirty-year-old Marcus Jeter of Bloomfield, N.J., was facing a five-year prison sentence until he was freed by evidence from a dashboard camera on the police cruiser of the very officers who falsified reports, according to ABC 7 New York. The video came to light after Jeter’s defense attorney, Steven Brown, requested all recorded evidence. Initially,…
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12 Years a Slave, Kevin Hart Win Big at NAACP Image Awards
Steve McQueen’s historical epic about slavery in America, 12 Years a Slave, swept the film categories at the NAACP Image Awards, earning four wins. At the 45th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday evening at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Lupita Nyong’o won for supporting actress, and in a separate ceremony Friday evening, McQueen won the Image Award for director…
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Quote of the Day: Charles Alston on Art
You can read this quote from Charles Alston, which was said during a 1968 New York Times interview, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Alston 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…
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4 Reasons to Watch VH1’s The Tanning of America
Next week VH1 is set to air The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip Hop, a four-part documentary series based on Steve Stoute’s similarly titled book, The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. It was a fascinating read and remix of hip-hop’s history and…
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NFL to Penalize Use of the N-Word
While the n-word has slipped into common use in some circles, its days are numbered on the NFL gridiron. The agency that monitors diversity for the NFL says the league may institute a rule to penalize players 15 yards for using the word on the field, ABC News reports. John Wooten, head of the group,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
