culture
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‘You’re Beautiful, Successful and Educated’ and Waiting on a Man in Prison
Sometimes, taking off your mask is the hardest challenge you will face in life. The allure of wearing a mask is the false sense of protection it promises. It shields your true feelings while providing an image that doesn’t fracture the world’s perception of you. The problem with wearing a mask is that you…
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Black Student Activists Stand Against Racist Cultures on Campus
Editor’s note: The Associated Press is reporting that University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe announced Monday morning that he is resigning, “effective immediately,” in the wake of student protests over his handling of racial matters on campus. The radical spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement touched college campuses this past week in high-profile demonstrations…
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Playwright Reacts to the White Casting of MLK in The Mountaintop
“I remember he had the prettiest skin I had ever seen. Flawless. So chocolate you could see yourself reflected in it,” Carrie Hall, my mother, recounted wistfully. On March 28, 1968, she had caught a glimpse of Martin Luther King Jr. when he came to Memphis, Tenn., to lead a march for sanitation workers. It…
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H&M Apologizes for Racist Response to Lack of Diversity in Marketing Campaign
The fashion industry has never been known as a bastion of diversity, but talk about letting the proverbial cat out of the bag: H&M apologized last week for a comment on Twitter that said white models portray a more “positive image” for the brand, according to Eyewitness News. The apology came after social media user…
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Greg Hardy Apologizes After Domestic Violence Photos Drop on Twitter
Dallas Cowboy defensive end Greg Hardy, who last year was arrested and charged with attacking and threatening an ex-girlfriend, apologized on Twitter Saturday night after images of the incident appeared online. On Friday afternoon, Deadspin published the images after obtaining them during an investigation, along with hundreds of pages of records in the case. Hardy,…
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Watch: Donald Trump Hosts SNL Despite Protests, Dances to ‘Hotline Bling’
The debate over Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s role as host of Saturday Night Live was, well, livelier than the actual event. He appeared as the show’s host despite protests by Hispanic groups, who called on NBC to yank the real estate mogul from the program over racist comments he made about illegal Mexican immigrants,…
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3 Ways My Large African Family Stays in Touch at All Hours of the Night
Being a firstborn daughter in a relatively sizable extended family of East Africans (one of my aunts has seven kids from her first marriage, I have six aunts on one side, and a couple of uncles with more than one wife) certainly has its benefits. I’ve been taught to experience rice as a food group; have…
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‘Gentler War on Drugs’ for Whites Is a ‘Smack’ in Black America’s Face [Retracted]
RETRACTED (6/12/18): This story has been removed because we have discovered it was in breach of our editorial standards. If you’d like to know more, you can read an editor’s note here. A cached version of the story is available here for transparency.
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Patti LaBelle Lost 2 Sisters to Lung Cancer; Now She’s Fighting to End the Disease
Award-winning singer Patti LaBelle has a personal stake in spreading awareness about lung cancer: She has two sisters who succumbed to the disease within two years of each other. Her sisters, Vivian and Jackie, both of whom she lost in the early 1980s, are why she joined the American Lung Association Lung Force initiative as a…
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Rapper Jahi Educates in the Classroom and From Behind the Mic
Jahi isn’t your average rapper. He doesn’t have to just worry about flow and lyrics when he tours with Public Enemy as part of the group PE 2.0. As an educator and pioneer of the African-American Male Achievement program in the Oakland, Calif., public school system, he has to wait until summer break, when the…