culture

From NewsOne: State police in riot gear rushed a downtown street to break up a standoff Tuesday between hundreds of black and white extremists who exchanged screams of “Black power!” and “White power!” during a protest over the state’s handling of the case of a black man who was run over and dragged by a…

The Root: We’ve all seen the police and media reports around your arrest last Thursday in Cambridge, Mass., Charles Ogletree issued a statement to The Root that included a synopsis of the incident. But what have you been going through since Thursday? Henry Louis Gates Jr.: I’m outraged. I can’t believe that an individual policeman…

Stellar.

Ain’t nothing post-racial about the United States of America. I say this because my best friend, a well-known, middle-aged, affluent, black man, was arrested on his own front porch after showing his identification to a white police officer who was responding to a burglary call. Though the officer quickly determined that my friend was the…

From Al Jazeera: “A panel ordered by Barack Obama to develop new US policy on the detention of so-called terrorism suspects as part of his effort to shut the Guantanamo prison, has delayed its report to the president by six months. Aides to Obama said the task force would miss the administration’s own Tuesday deadline…

In the spring of 1978, a few months before I left Dallas to move to New York City, my senior English teacher, Jim Lloyd, took me aside to warn me of the dangers that lurked up north. Most of what he told me was the familiar claptrap about how the insidious racism of the North…

Dear Mommy, I don’t want to be like you and daddy. Sure, there are lots of good things you guys do really well. But what I am trying to say is that when I am all grown up, I don’t want to be your size. I heard this report last week about black folks and…

From Al Jazeera: “Supporters of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, have celebrated the anti-apartheid icon’s 91st birthday with the launch of a special day in his name. Mandela celebrated with his family and friends on “Mandela Day”, which is being promoted as a day to do good and one his charity foundation hopes will…

I was 9 when Neil Armstrong took that “one small step for man,” and even as a kid, I wasn’t impressed. The moon? Please. On Star Trek, they were whizzing by moons in other galaxies, and Tintin, the protagonist of my favorite series of graphic novels (even in the ‘60s they were way too fancy…