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White House Planning First Lady Michelle Obama’s 50th Birthday
First lady Michelle Obama is turning 50 on Jan. 17, and the White House plans to hold—wait for it, yes—a dance party! The party, to be held the following day, will be called, “Snacks & Sips & Dancing & Dessert,” according to Politico, which cites a report at the Chicago Tribune. Save-the-date emails are being…
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Questlove Apologizes to Japanese Community for Instagram Posts
Questlove has issued an apology for some insensitive social media posts from his recent tour of Japan. This picture, which has since been deleted, pokes fun at a Japanese department store clerk’s voice: He also posted this Vine video, in which he inverts letters in a caption that appears to mock Japanese accents: Allhiphop.com reports:…
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Trayvon Martin Nativity Scene at California Church Protests Violence
A Southern California church, known for its cutting-edge Christmas displays, this year features a bleeding Trayvon Martin in its Nativity scene as part of a commentary on violence, the Raw Story reports. The artist, John Zachary, said that George Zimmerman’s acquittal this summer in the shooting death of the unarmed 17-year-old deserved further discussion. To…
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Watch John Kerry Show Snoop Dogg Some Holiday Love
Secretary of State John Kerry is good at this diplomacy thing. On Thursday, Snoop Dogg posted a video on Instagram of him hobnobbing with Kerry at the White House. We’re not sure who Kerry is crediting for the creation of hip-hop, but in the clip he says to Snoop, “He invented your whole thing.” Snoop…
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Christmas Nightmare: 2 NJ Teens Killed, 1 Critically Injured in Shooting
After unwrapping gifts and celebrating Christmas, two teens died Wednesday in Newark, N.J., amid a hail of bullets intended for someone else, according to the Daily News, citing reports from police and neighbors. Hours after Zainee Hailey, 13, opened her gifts, including a Kindle, a $100 gift card and a watch, she and a visitor,…
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New Video Footage: Clue to Michigan Doctor’s Disappearance?
When 30-year-old physician Teleka Patrick vanished nearly three weeks ago, few people reported seeing her after she left work. Now video footage released from the Radisson Hotel in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Dec. 6, the evening of her disappearance, provides more clues for investigators about that fateful night, ABC News reports. In the video, she can…
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Stop Making Jokes About Kwanzaa—Seriously
I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa. Or I haven’t, at least, since the days of green-and-red-draped Black Student Union programs in high school. I admit that I couldn’t list the names of its seven principles and their accompanying meanings from memory if you held a lit candle to my head. A focus on this celebration—created in 1966…
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Quote of the Day: Dambisa Moyo on Aid to Africa
You can read this quote from the book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (2009), by Dambisa Moyo, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of…
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African Journalists Could Face Prison Over Investigative Reports
In the obituaries and remembrances of Nelson Mandela, many have written about the journey that led him from being a lawyer to an anti-apartheid activist, to 27 years of imprisonment to becoming the nation’s first black president. Some in the media have argued about the sanitizing of the image of Mandela, who was once considered…
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The Incredible Life and Trying Basketball Times of Kobe Bryant, Part 1
“We’ve learned Kobe Bryant has been asked to run the Federal Reserve. The feeling is, he can do more with three quarters than most of us can do with a whole dollar.” —Peter Vescey, the New York Post What are the makings of a titan? In Greek mythology, a titan is an immortal deity of great…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
