Diddy’s Daughters’ Tearful Exit From Trial Ignites Black America’s Outcry
Black Celebs Showed Out at Paris Fashion Week
A White Waitress at a St. Louis Restaurant Calls a Black Woman Customer the B-Word on Video, and It Only Gets Worse From There…
Mama Duke Just Dropped Another Banger and Fans Say It’s As Good As Her ‘America’s Got Talent’ Hit
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AP-GfK Poll: Americans Split On Health Care Repeal
An Associated Press-GfK poll found likely voters evenly split on whether the health care law should be scrapped or revised to make more changes in the way Americans get their health care. Tea Party enthusiasm for repeal has failed to catch on with other groups, the poll found, which may be a problem for Republicans…
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Juan Williams Fallout: GOP Wants NPR's Federal Funding Cut
Juan Williams is the luckiest unluckiest man in the world. Williams, whose contract was terminated by NPR, received a three-year, $2 million contract from Fox News. All should be right with the world, because Williams can now spew whatever venom he wants, unchecked. Clearly that’s not enough, since several high-profile Republicans have called for NPR’s…
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Four Tops Heirs Sue Surviving Member
The Detroit News is reporting that the daughters of the late Renaldo “Obie” Benson have filed suit against the only surviving member of The Four Tops, one of Motown’s most iconic soul groups. The Four Tops stayed together for more than 40 years, but the heirs of Benson, Tobi Walker and Eboni Benson have managed…
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LeBron James and the Race Card
When I first heard basketball player LeBron James, late of the Cleveland Cavaliers and now suiting up for the Miami Heat, reply to a question during a CNN interview about whether race was a factor in his sudden and intense vilification — “I think so, at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor” —…
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NPR Should Have Dumped Juan Williams — but Not Today
Is Juan Williams a bigot? Probably not. Should National Public Radio have fired him for his anti-Muslim comments on Fox News? Not this time. No doubt Williams’ bosses at NPR hated it when he was introduced several times each week on Fox News as “NPR’s Juan Williams” — last year they asked him to stop…
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Williams Firing: Shirley Not Again
By William Saletan Shirley Sherrod, meet Juan Williams. Three months ago, right-wingers clipped a video of Sherrod to make her look like a racist. They circulated the video on the Internet, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture fired her. Now it’s happening again. This time, left-wingers have done the editing. They clipped a video of…
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Ginni's on the Phone
It was well before daybreak a few weeks ago when I got a call from the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. “White, you need to get over here right away,” Buckwheat insisted. “I’m being stalked.” When I arrived a few minutes later, Buckwheat was hollering into his telephone. “How many times does I have to…
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The Root Interview: Soledad O'Brien on Blacks and Debt
The third installment of Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America series airs tonight on CNN. In three years, O’Brien has delivered three long — and sometimes controversial — documentaries addressing aspects of black life in the United States. The latest installment, “Almighty Debt,” focuses on debt among African Americans and a New Jersey church leader’s attempt…
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The Root Interview: James Earl Jones on Driving Miss Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy, the racially charged, 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfred Uhry, has had a long shelf life. In 1989 it was made into an Oscar-winning film starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Now it’s coming to Broadway, opening tonight. This go-round, the timeless story of tenderness across the racial divide during Jim Crow…
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Single-Minded: I Am Dr. Faye
This time last year, everyone was into “Mad Men”-ing themselves. No Facebook or Gchat avatar was safe. Don Drapers, Roger Sterlings, Joan Holloways and Peggy Olsons — the stars of AMC’s period drama about white male privilege — invaded the Internet like so many inch-square viruses. After Sunday’s finale, my avatar is getting a makeover.…