culture
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Pastor With AIDS Who Admitted to Adultery With Church Members Won’t Step Down
Deacons of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., have now filed a lawsuit against the Rev. Juan D. McFarland, who shook his congregation when he confessed to sleeping around with church members even though he knew he had AIDS, NBC News reports. Church members voted almost unanimously (80-1) to get rid of the…
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7 HIV / AIDS Lessons From the Montgomery, Ala., Pastor Disaster
Last week’s preacher scandal has enough intrigue and heat for a ShondaLand soap or reality show. But once you get past all the drama in the Rev. Juan D. McFarland’s Montgomery, Ala., church, it’s clear that many of us still have some important lessons to learn about sexually transmitted diseases. If you’re not already up…
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Ebola-Themed Halloween Outfits Expected to Go ‘Viral’
Cultural appropriation and various forms of blackface are usually what’s dredged up from the place of all things offensive and tacky for Halloween, but this year’s Ebola outbreak seems to be attracting the attention of trick-or-treaters looking to up their game when it comes to the distasteful. According to the Associated Press, fake protective gear…
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Police Search for 3 Men Believed to Be Involved in Death of 15-Month-Old NJ Girl
A 15-month-old girl was killed by a stray bullet while playing inside her New Jersey home on Saturday, a mere two days after moving in, CBS 2 reports. According to the report, authorities are searching for three men who were last seen wearing black hoodies and firing guns multiple times in the Irvington neighborhood. One…
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How Does It Work Being a Stay-at-Home Dad?
In a growing number of families, Mom is the breadwinner and Dad stays at home to take care of the kids. But how does that setup work for the family finances, for the marital relationship and for the mom who might be feeling left out of her children’s lives? In episode 6 of The Root…
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Dallas Cowboys Player Arrested for Shoplifting Underwear and Cologne
Looks like making half a million dollars a year isn’t enough for some people. According to ESPN, Dallas Cowboys backup running back Joseph Randle was arrested Monday night after reportedly attempting to steal cologne and underwear from Dillard’s department store. Randle was charged with a Class B theft, which is in the $50-$500 range, and…
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Convicted Killer Charged in Mother’s Murder 2 Days After Release
A New Jersey man is back behind bars after allegedly killing his own mother—two days after completing a 30-year prison sentence for another murder, NJ.com reports. According to the report, Steven Pratt, 45, was taken into custody on Sunday, not even 48 hours after he was released from Bayside State Prison for the 1984 murder…
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Home Depot Executive VP Marvin Ellison to Lead J.C. Penney
Marvin Ellison, the current executive vice president at Home Depot Inc., and a retail veteran with about three decades in the industry, will face some big challenges when he takes on the role of J.C. Penney CEO, the Associated Press reports. As the news wire notes, the department store chain has been trying to recover…
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Not a Black, but a White American Studies Course
Rather than the traditional African and African-American studies programs offered in universities across the nation, there is now an analogous white American studies program that examines the cultural experiences of white Americans, the European immigrant groups they’re descended from, and how race and their ethnicities influence their lives. The Whiteness Project now seems to be the…
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Cornel West Arrested While Protesting in Ferguson
People protesting police misconduct in Ferguson, Mo., continued to capture headlines Monday, especially with one of the nation’s most famous public intellectuals, Cornel West, among those arrested in front of a local police station. According to a New York Times report, West told the police officers who were keeping demonstrators from entering the police station…