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Bill Maher Responds to White Guys. Why Not to Wayne Brady?
Morris W. O’Kelly writes at the Huffington Post that the talk-show host only picks fights that he thinks he can win. But with Wayne Brady, he lost badly. It’s about time Bill Maher responded to Wayne Brady. Not because he owes Brady any sort of explanation or apology for his previous jokes about Brady supposedly…
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We Need a New Vision for the Brown Decision
(The Root) — One year from now, we will mark the diamond jubilee, or 60th anniversary, of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. I fear the celebration will be a muted, if not deeply ambivalent, moment. Brown enshrines some transcendently important principles. But at the same time, with almost 60 years of…
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Lupe Fiasco Gets Put in a Time-Out
(The Root) — Everyone knows by now that rapper Lupe Fiasco is not afraid to speak his mind, but apparently he made his management nervous on Twitter last night. After a debate with fellow rapper Talib Kweli about violence in rap music, Lupe ventured into a discussion about Marxism with a few folks on Twitter,…
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Ask Jenée Desmond-Harris Anything
(The Root) — Hi, I’m Jenée Desmond-Harris, The Root’s staff writer and Race Manners advice columnist. I’ve been writing about the intersection of race with politics, culture and identity (and sometimes just stuff black people do) for The Root for a couple of years. So I split my time pretty evenly between being outraged and laughing…
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P Diddy's Mysterious Announcement
(The Root) — If there’s any overlap between fans of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and the hit PBS show Downton Abbey, they will be very excited about the rap mogul’s big news today: He announced on Twitter that he’ll be joining the cast of the show as a series regular. Downton Abbey is a British…
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Exec on Bad AIDS Drugs: 'Who Cares? It's Just Blacks Dying'
On May 13, India-based generic-drug manufacturer Ranbaxy Laboratories pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud, failing to report that its drugs didn’t meet specifications and making intentionally false statements to the U.S. government. In other words, it sold generic medications for everything from ear infections to AIDS that…
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Did Jay Harris Actually Choose Rap Over Football?
By now you’ve probably heard about Jay Harris, a top Philadelphia high school wide receiver who raised a lot of eyebrows, inspired some people by following his dreams and made others want to kick him when he told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he turned down an athletic scholarship to Michigan State University to pursue a…
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Obama Calls Staffer Shot While Caught in Crossfire
Gregory Jackson Jr., the Southern-region director for Organizing for Action — the post-election version of Obama for America — was caught in the crossfire of a violent argument outside Washington, D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center and shot in the calf on the early morning of April 21. Ironically, the Huffington Post points out, one…
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High Schooler Tweets His Way Into UCLA
(The Root) — A high school senior is celebrating in Massachusetts this week after lobbying for acceptance to his dream school — online. When 18-year-old Bernie Zak was wait-listed after applying to UCLA, he didn’t want to wait; he wanted to “do something.” He took to Twitter with the intent of tweeting 50 reasons why…
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Quote of the Day: Martin Luther King Jr.
Read this and other MLK quotes 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
