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50 Years Later, It’s Time for a New War on Poverty
Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson gave one of the most important State of the Union speeches in American history. Championing the cause of racial and economic equality, he promised, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” A half-century later, it’s time for America to declare a new…
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Quote of the Day: Ed Bradley on Journalism
You can read this quote by Ed Bradley in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more quotes by Bradley 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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4 Things to Tell Teens Who Joke About Race
“I am a white woman who works with a racially diverse group of teens in an after-school program. I hear a lot of jokey, self-directed racism: a Latino teen with a new haircut jokes that he now looks like ‘Justin Beaner’; two girls from Peru make negative comments about who has darker skin after they spend the afternoon…
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Why Legalized Weed Is Good News for Young Black Men
As the legalization of marijuana promises to join the legalization of gay marriage as part of the unanticipatedly rapid social revolution that will define our times, we will be hearing certain ruminations. And not only from fire-breathing moralists easy to dismiss as “behind the times.” I refer to wiser heads worried that legalization will raise…
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Don’t Go to Parties for the Food: Build Your Networks
Ninety percent of all small businesses get business from referrals. So your network is your net worth in business, especially when you are starting out. One of the biggest challenges that holds back African-American business owners is not having a diverse network or not networking effectively. Sometimes deals boil down to who knows you, not…
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Unemployed Still Have a Shot to Get Benefits Back
It seems that congressional Republicans—or some, at least—are finally coming to the realization that their constituents are poor and unemployed. On Tuesday the U.S. Senate voted to move forward with the bill that would extend unemployment benefits, which expired three days after Christmas. It provides benefits to roughly 1.3 million eligible workers for three months,…
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Politico Is Twitter’s Foremost Punchline Today
On Sunday, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry doubled down on her apology to the Romneys for using their family photo in a segment of her “Look Back In Laughter” episode, which aired at the end of last month. In his defense of Harris-Perry (catch up on the entire brouhaha here), the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates referred to…
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Tiger Mom’s Latest Book? Obnoxious, but Not Racist
With her first book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she sang the praises of strict parenting and Chinese mothers in particular, Yale law professor Amy Chua evoked some bruising criticism. Some, like the Broad Side’s Joanne Bamberger, wrote that Chua’s parenting prescriptions “bordered on child abuse,” while others simply accused her of…
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SNL Deserves No Love for Doing the Right Thing
Back in September, Saturday Night Live earned the ire of outspoken fans when the show announced its new cast lineup, which failed to include a black woman, a glaring omission. It didn’t help matters when black cast member Kenan Thompson blamed the show’s diversity problem on a weak talent pool. The SNL cast had not…
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Google’s Eyes Are Watching Zora Neale Hurston
If you thought you saw a familiar face this morning when you went to do your first Internet search of the day, it’s because you did. It was the famous face, framed by her ever-present ’20s-style cloche, of writer, anthropologist and all-around American icon—and iconoclast—Zora Neale Hurston. Google celebrated what would have been her 123rd…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
