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What Is It About Skin Color?
(Special to The Root) — Skin color is one of our most important biological traits. Its many shades evolved as humans moved far and wide into regions with different intensities of sunlight. Skin color is also a trait that has come to have deep cultural meanings — developed over many centuries — that influence our…
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Six Brown Chicks Repair Their Friendship With Iyanla's Help
Essence‘s Charli Penn checks in with the ladies of the popular blog to find out what they learned from the OWN host and one another. When the friendship between the women behind the popular lifestyle blog Six Brown Chicks fell apart, their blog did too. Suddenly, these dynamic women — authors, business owners, philanthropists and…
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Commenting on 'Girls' and Coming Out of the Locker Room Ghetto
Writing at the Huffington Post, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar tries to unpack why so many were shocked that a former athlete is able to tackle topics outside of sports. Last week I wrote a blog for The Huffington Post in which I commented on the HBO series Girls. My conclusion: Although the show strives to be a…
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Don't Expect Obama at Chicago Teen's Funeral
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg explains why he says the Rev. Jesse Jackson is waiting in vain for the president to attend services for Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old who was killed a week after performing in inaugural events. There are countless places President Barack Obama will not be this Saturday — the moon, my living…
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Gun Violence Robs Chicago Mom of 4th Child
Gun violence robs Chicago mom of fourth child: Shirley Chambers first lost a child to gunfire in the mid 1990s. In 2000 a daughter and a son were shot to death just months apart. On Monday, Chambers buried her last child. Read her full story at NPR. Will Alabama exonerate the Scottsboro Boys? A resolution…
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Disney's White Rabbit Racist? Family Sues
First of all, as far as we know, the names involved in this story of allegations of racism against Disneyland (the White Rabbit, and the Black family) are just a coincidence. But one San Diego mother says an Alice in Wonderland character’s poor treatment of her son at the theme park was intentional, and it…
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Why White Men Are Obsessed With the First Lady's Butt
High school football coach Bob Grisham of Alabama was surreptitiously recorded by one of his students making inappropriate — but, unfortunately, also familiar — comments about the first lady’s body, the Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson reports. “Fat-butt Michelle Obama,” Grisham said. “Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190. She’s overweight.” (Bonus:…
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Strom Thurmond's Biracial Daughter Dies
Essie Mae Washington-Williams had a decades-long career as a schoolteacher in Los Angeles, but she’ll likely be remembered most as an emblem of the hypocrisy of her father, the late onetime segregationist, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond kept Washington-Williams, the daughter he fathered with his family’s African-American maid, a secret for more…
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I'm a Black Female Cosplayer, and Some People Hate It
Chaka Cumberbatch recalls at xoJane how the simple act of dressing up like her favorite anime character brought out some of the Internet’s worst racism. I got a crash course in this when in 2010, I cosplayed Sailor Venus, my favorite character from my favorite anime, Sailor Moon … What kills me is that in…
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Why the Super Bowl Was Historic for Black Women
Writing at Clutch magazine, Liane Membis says the proud day for African-American women wasn’t just about Beyoncé headlining the Super Bowl’s halftime show — it was about the “outstanding unity and camaraderie displayed throughout the event.” The 2013 Superbowl notably featured several artists of color with tremendous talent. Jennifer Hudson emphatically opened the game singing…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
