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Has President Obama Neglected HBCUs?
Brandon Brice, at the Washington Times, asks whether President Barack Obama could do more to help historically black colleges and universities. The federal government prepares to enact a new set of loan-eligibility requirements, which could greatly reduce enrollments. Imagine if black colleges didn’t exist. What if the ability of black students to attend or complete…
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Setback for AIDS-Vaccine Research
(The Root) — First do no harm. That’s the golden rule of medicine. But a new analysis of a trio of AIDS-vaccine trials shows that’s exactly what happened in two of the three studies. In trials conducted across four continents with a combined total of more than 6,000 participants, vaccines using a flulike virus that…
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Surprise! Twitter's Board Is All White, All Male
(The Root) — We know the stats: Black folks overindex on Twitter. Latinos do, too. According to a 2012 Pew study, 26 percent of black Internet users are on Twitter, compared with 19 percent of Latino users and 14 percent of white users. Women generally use social networking sites more than men, and they make up…
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Slur Highlights Race Problem in Gymnastics
(The Root) — When Gabby Douglas became the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the individual all-around competition, her triumph sparked a great deal of discussion about the sport’s lack of diversity. As Douglas’ own long struggle to succeed made clear, training and traveling costs are great obstacles to many aspiring…
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McDonald's Worker Arrested After Confronting Executive Over Wages
Jeff Stratton started out working behind a McDonald’s counter in Detroit nearly 40 years ago. Now he’s president of McDonald’s U.S.A. Not bad. With such roots, it would seem that he would have strong relationships with workers, from those in corporate suites to the line cooks. Perhaps he does, but that certainly did not appear…
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'Look at Me When I'm Talking to You'
(The Root) — In just the first four minutes of last week’s season premiere of Scandal, giddy gladiators finally got a glimpse of what life must have been like in the Pope residence. And, for anyone who grew up under the thumb of an exacting parent, that scene looked all too familiar. As it turns…
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Did You See Kanye on 'Kimmel'?
If you want to see what’s hot on black Twitter, check out The Chatterati.Akoto Ofori-Atta is the editor of The Grapevine. Like her Facebook page and follow her on Twitter.
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Should I Let My Own Mr. Big Back in My Life?
(The Root) — “The love of my life played my ‘Big’ for five years. He wined and dined, bought gifts, we went on trips, etc. He is in a relationship. I am recently single. He wants to do dinner so we can have a serious talk. ‘No B.S.,’ is what he said. What is there…
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Ending Female Genital Mutilation
Nice Nailantei Leng’ete escaped her own planned circumcision at age 8, and she committed to save others, too. Now, at 22, she’s working with her Masai community and others in Kenya to implement alternative rites of passage programs in which more than 800 girls have taken part so far. These images show Leng’ete’s efforts to…
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Quote of the Day: Alain Locke on Africa
Read more about Alain Locke here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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.
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
