culture
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Atlanta Entrepreneur Paul Judge Raises $12,500,000 From Amazon.com for New Home Wi-Fi Device
Paul Judge is something of a phenomenon in Atlanta’s bustling tech scene. As a serial entrepreneur, investor and adviser, Judge lives by the challenge of solving hard problems and building companies to make the world better. Twenty years ago, the Louisiana native ventured to Morehouse to attend college; there he earned a degree in computer…
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Schools Spend More Money Policing Students Than Helping Them
On Wednesday night, we saw a video of yet another student being physically brutalized and criminalized by an armed school police officer, this time in San Antonio. The 12-year-old girl, Janissa Valdez, was body-slammed, face-first, on the concrete before being handcuffed and taken away. The scene was reminiscent of another horrific incident involving an officer…
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Why Bill Clinton Is the Least-Deserving Honorary Black Person, Explained
Who is Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton is a white man. Why is Bill Clinton in the news today? Bill Clinton is a white man who happened to be president of the United States from 1992 to 2000. His wife, Hillary Clinton, a white woman, is running for president now. Bill Clinton was a popular president…
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Scandal Recap: Olivia Goes All the Way Over to the Dark Side
Remember last season when Olivia Pope was kidnapped and put up for sale on a global auction block (during Black History Month, no less)? President Fitz Grant had selected his old friend, Andrew Nichols, to be his vice president, but as it turned out, Andrew had designs on Fitz’s wife and his job. So Andrew had Olivia…
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Watch: How Chi Ali Went From Convicted Rapper to Human Rights Activist
In 2001, rapper Chi Ali was arrested for the shooting death of his girlfriend’s brother, Sean Raymond. He spent a year evading police and even appeared on an episode of America’s Most Wanted. He ended up doing 12 years in prison for the violent crime and has turned his life around. He earned a bachelor’s…
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Empire Recap: Well, That Escalated Quickly
At some point I’m going to have to accept that my relationship with Empire is like Charlie Brown and the football. Against my better judgment, I’m always ready to get invested in a storyline, and then the writers resolve it before the commercial break. In this episode, “A Rose by Any Other Name,” Lee Daniels…
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The Anguish of Depression: ‘I Am Trying to Stay Alive’
Many like to use the metaphor of darkness when it comes to depression. My experience is more like a fog: a thing descending slowly; a thick something that surrounds me and distorts the vision of myself and the world around me. One day, there is nothing but sun, and without warning, things that felt like…
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Instagram Project Vividly Captures the Human Toll of Mass Incarceration
Last week, President Barack Obama used his pardoning power to commute the sentences of 61 additional nonviolent drug offenders in an effort to at least moderately correct the insurmountable injustices delivered through America’s war on drugs. The war on drugs (and the mass incarceration that is its result) is heavily in the news because of…
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Here’s What Happens When You Give Money to Female and Minority Entrepreneurs to Fix Global Problems
The name Village Capital may evoke visions of some run-of-the-mill financial-services operation, but in fact, it’s a startup-development organization with a decidedly different goal. “Our mission has been to democratize entrepreneurship,” says Nasir Qadree, Village Capital’s sector manager for education. “Village Capital finds, trains and invests in entrepreneurs solving global problems.” It’s a lofty goal,…
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The People v. O.J. Simpson Recap: Not Guilty. What, Did You Expect Something Different?
Johnnie Cochran meets O.J. Simpson at the jail with a spread of suits and accessories appropriate for a photo shoot. It’s a big day, the last day that the defense will present its, well, defense. In the courtroom, O.J. wants to make a statement. He says he “did not, could not and would not” commit…