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'Racist': Does the GOP Know the Meaning?
In a piece at the Daily Beast, Jamelle Bouie weighs in on a Republican lawmaker’s unwittingly absurd comment that the president’s tax on tanning beds is, um, “racist” because black people do not use them. The only way to describe the tax as “racist,” Bouie writes, “is to turn the word into a mindless insult.”…
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7 Things Oprah Might Make Lindsay Lohan Do
Oprah Winfrey is feeling good about the sobriety prospects of new mentee Lindsay Lohan this time around, the Los Angeles Times reports: The talk-show-host-turned-OWN-CEO appeared live on“Good Morning America” Tuesday and shared some insight during the morning show’s discussion panel. “That was really a great interview,” Winfrey said of her “in-depth” talk with the troubled starlet, who completed her…
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A Daughter Comes to Terms With Her Absentee Father
Crissinda M. Ponder writes a powerful piece at For Harriet about reconciling her relationship with her absentee father. “They say a father is supposed to be a daughter’s first love,” she writes. “This wasn’t my reality but I can finally fix my mouth to say, I’m OK with that.” I don’t know how long it took, reaching this…
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Matt Damon's Attacks on Obama Hypocritical?
(The Root) — Like a number of celebrities, Matt Damon has used his role in the public eye to draw attention to various social and political issues. But while some celebrities are dismissed as not particularly knowledgeable about the causes they claim to care about, Damon is not one of them. He is known for…
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When You're the Only Minority in the Room
(The Root) — Plenty of us have been there: the lone black student in a poetry workshop full of white people, the only Asian family in a neighborhood full of everyone else. It inspires a bevy of feelings: defensiveness, loneliness, irritability. Code Switch, NPR’s blog about race, culture and ethnicity, asked its Twitter followers for…
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Jada Pinkett Smith: Facebook's Life Coach?
While Iyanla Vanzant is doing a lot of what she’d call “her work” (read: exposing people’s problems to the world and yelling at them while calling them “beloved”) on her show Fix My Life, actress Jada Pinkett Smith has been quietly dropping near-daily life lessons and self-improvement concepts for the masses in a context that…
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Want to Be Mayor of Detroit? Get in Line
Despite the fact that Detroit is in the throes of Chapter 9 bankruptcy and is the largest American city to file for bankruptcy, more than a dozen people are running to be its mayor, reports NBC News. Current Mayor Dave Bing will not be running for re-election. Right now, Kevin Orr is serving as the…
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Obamas Prepare for Vineyard Vacation: Locals Complain
Some longtime vacationers on Martha’s Vineyard are complaining that the raised al-Qaida threat could mean increased security and traffic jams when the Obamas arrive on the island this weekend, the Daily News reports. The first family arrives this Saturday and in order to protect the President, Secret Service is proposing shutting down a main road…
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How the Voting Rights Act Affected Congress
The Voting Rights Act was signed into law 48 years ago this week. The landmark legislation set out to end blatant voter suppression against black people while increasing the diversity of political representation. A Huffington Post report and graphic shows how effective the VRA was in that mission. When the law was passed in 1965,…
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'Dapper' Gangs: What Would Don Lemon Say?
(The Root) — Last week, few could resist responding to a list of things Don Lemon proposed black men do to show respect for themselves, thereby improving their overall well-being. It was apparently inspired by advice his mother gave him when he was in kindergarten: Stop saying the n-word, stop littering, finish high school and refrain…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
