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Minority Report: Reflections on Supreme Court Rulings
(The Root) — This was a monumental week for the Supreme Court, which ruled on three major cases before ending its session. Decisions on the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, preclearance requirements for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and a law prohibiting federal recognition of gay marriage were delivered back-to-back over the course…
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Keri Hilson: 'YOLO, So Know Your Status'
(The Root) — Keri Hilson gets tested for HIV/AIDS every six months, and she’s lending her name to a product that will allow you to do the same. “I make healthy decisions when it comes to my sex life, and I make really good decisions to lower my risk of HIV,” Hilson told The Root during a…
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First-Generation Blacks: My Parents Are African, So Some Parts of Coming to America Was Straight Up Annoying
(The Root) — When Coming to America premiered 25 years ago, on June 29, 1988, it was an instant classic — and the third-highest-grossing film of the year. The Eddie Murphy comedy, about a prince from a fictional African country who comes to the U.S. to find his future queen, tops plenty of fans’ funniest-movie-of-all-time…
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Obamas Visit 'Door of No Return' in Senegal
The Washington Post is reporting that the Obamas visited the “Door of No Return” on Senegal’s Goree Island Thursday afternoon and looked at the Atlantic Ocean from the same vantage point that African slaves once had on their way to North America. The United States’ first African American president was then joined by his wife,…
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Michelle Obama Joins Instagram
(The Root) — The Internet is squealing over Michelle Obama’s brand-new Instagram account. FLOTUS posted her first picture today, signed “-mo,” indicating that she posted it herself, as she does on Twitter. She is currently chronicling the first family’s trip to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania and is using Instagram’s new video feature, too. I’m…
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Rove: Bush Was Skeptical of Voting Rights Act
(The Root) — During a Q&A at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Karl Rove, the most prominent Republican strategist in the country, admitted that the Grand Old Party will be unlikely to reclaim the White House if it does not find a way to expand support among minority voters. But he also applauded the Supreme Court’s…
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'Coming to America': Where Are They Now?
It’s been 25 years since one of your favorite black movies — as evidenced by our Black Movie Madness bracket — was released. Yes, Coming to America, featuring four versions of Eddie Murphy and several Arsenio Halls, hits the quarter-century mark on June 29. Take a look at what some of the cast has been…
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Southern Discomfort? The Future of Voting Rights in the US
(The Root) — Like gleeful children released from detention, officials in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and other states vowed to enact new voting restrictions just hours after the Supreme Court did their bidding and neutered the Voting Rights Act (pdf). Free at last, they might as well have said. “[Attorney General] Eric Holder can no…
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In Defense of Rachel Jeantel
(The Root) — The George Zimmerman murder trial has captured the nation’s attention since it began. When Rachel Jeantel, the last person to speak with Trayvon Martin (aside from Zimmerman), took the stand, it ignited a dialogue on race, class and the cultural shaming of our own. Many people have been very critical of the…
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Watch This: Anti-Racism Lesson Goes Viral 40 Years Later
The day after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, third-grade teacher Jane Elliott listened to her class in an all-white Iowa town make racist remarks about his death and decided to teach them a lesson, according to the Globe and Mail. “What I had racked my brain [for] was a…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
