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July Jobs Numbers: Black Unemployment Down
(The Root) — The Labor Department released its July jobs report today, showing that the economy added 162,000 jobs last month, and the overall unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent from 7.6 percent in June, according to the U.S. Labor Department. More good news: The overall unemployment rate for African Americans edged down to 12.6…
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Diddy Taps Keith Clinkscales to Run Revolt TV
(The Root) — Keith Clinkscales, a former ESPN executive, has been tapped to lead Revolt TV. Sean “Diddy” Combs named Clinkscales chief executive officer of his music-oriented channel, Revolt TV, according to a news release. Combs also announced that industry veteran Andy Schuon will serve as president, and Val Boreland as executive vice president of programming…
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Jay-Z's HBO Documentary Strives to Reunite Hip-Hop and the Arts
(The Root) — When Jay Z performed “Picasso Baby” in a swanky New York City art gallery last month, he looked polished in a crisp white button-up, and he wore one of hip-hop’s most iconic symbols: a gold chain. Just one week prior, exhibits ranging in price from $10,000 to half-a-million dollars filled the same…
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The Strange Career of the N-Word
(The Root) — Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper’s recent apology for using the n-word during a confrontation with a black security guard at a country music concert last month exemplifies the power of a word rooted in racial slavery, Jim Crow segregation and racism. Cooper, a Kenny Chesney fan, presumably did not learn this…
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'Fruitvale Station': Too Difficult to Watch?
(The Root) — “I just don’t think I’m ready,” explained a friend as we discussed possible plans to go see Fruitvale Station, the critically acclaimed film that depicts the final 24 hours of 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s life. On New Year’s Day 2009, the unarmed and handcuffed Grant was shot and killed by a transit-police officer…
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Quote of the Day: W.E.B. Du Bois on Music
Read the quote in full context 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.
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Criticism for Syrian President's Instagram Account
Read more at NBC News. Tracy Clayton is a writer, humorist and blogger from Louisville, Ky.
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Duane Buck: Sentenced to Die Because He Is Black
In a cogent piece at the New York Times, Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. explores racial disparities in how the death penalty is meted out. He examines the case of Duane Buck, who is facing execution in Houston’s Harris County. His sentence is the clear result of racial discrimination, Ogletree says. Nearly 50…
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What Happened to Michelle Obama's Fashion Swagger?
Don’t be fooled because Michelle Obama is conspicuously missing from Vanity Fair’s 2013 International Best-Dressed List, says the Daily Beast‘s Isabel Wilkinson. The first lady can still outswagger most when it comes to fashion. One reason for the omission, Wilkinson writes, is that the first lady has been taking fewer fashion risks than she did…
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Why Some People Don't Know They're Racist
Rinku Sen, president and executive director of the Applied Research Center and publisher of Colorlines, writes an incisive piece that tackles racism and bigotry at their most visceral levels in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The nation’s legal frameworks are based on punishing explicit racism, not “implicit…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
