Search results for: “quotemedia/c”
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White Robber Fools Cops With Black Disguise
We all know that black men have been so identified with crime in the public mind that white perpetrators have successfully cried “the black man did it” and sent authorities looking for African American suspects. But a case from Cincinnati has them topped. “A white man who pleaded guilty to six robberies in Ohio used…
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Obama Pardons Reformed Moonshiner, 8 Others
President Barack Obama issued the first pardons of his presidency today, all for relatively minor offenses. Clearly he’s playing it safe, because six of the nine people didn’t even go to prison. One of them, Georgian Russell Dixon, was caught making moonshine 50 years ago. The pardoned people are: • James Bernard Banks, Liberty, Utah.…
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Still Down With Our Communities? Meh
There was a time when blacks were so closely tied to their communities that adult neighbors were almost like a second set of parents to children. From hulking high-rise housing projects in Detroit to single-story houses on tree-lined streets in Gary, Ind., neighbors would inform parents what time a child arrived home from school and…
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Single-Minded: Takeout on Thanksgiving
I ate lukewarm Thai food for Thanksgiving. The original plan was to fly home to Los Angeles — a place I haven’t lived in since the ’90s but will always refer to as “home.” Expedia.com, however, made it painfully obvious that eating for one day would replace eating for the rest of the month. So…
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Merck Names Black Chief Executive
Merck, the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical company, has named Kenneth C. Frazier, an African American, as its chief executive. Frazier, 55, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been the company’s general counsel and president and was expected to rise to the No. 1 job. He will succeed Richard T. Clark on Jan. 1. Clark will remain as chairman.…
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Rene Syler: Tears of Joy When the Perm Was Gone
Television’s René Syler Says “I Hope Times Are Changing” The last time many viewers saw René Syler, she was a co-anchor of CBS News’ “The Early Show,” with her hair chemically straightened and then hot curled. After four years, that job ended in 2006. She dealt with breast cancer surgery and other medical issues, wrote…
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The Great Urban Communication Divide
In a long and thoughtful Washington City Paper profile last week, veteran journalist Courtland Milloy was hailed as the “crotchety grandpa the city needs.” The writer, Rend Smith, gave the Washington Post columnist credit for being among the few mainstream writers tuned in to the racially polarized passions that toppled 39-year-old incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty…
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The Root Review: A Free Man of Color
New Orleans in the early part of the 19th century was a singular place — and it still is. Before the Louisiana Purchase, the city’s racial and social barriers were permeable in ways they would never be again. John Guare’s latest play, the kaleidoscopic A Free Man of Color, now at the Vivian Beaumont Theater…
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A 3-Pronged Tale of Black Migration
Isabel Wilkerson has added another important book to the long tradition of serious writings on the interplay between American society’s white-supremacist practices and the migration of black American citizens out of the viciously racist South to the North and West. Wilkerson subtitles her book, The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House, 2010), “The Epic Story…
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Obama Predicted to Win 2012 Election by Landslide
First people were saying that the Republicans were going to take the White House in 2012. Candidates like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have been touted as candidates who could take down President Barack Obama. In the words of…