culture
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Listen: SC Cop Who Shot Man Reaching for His Wallet Tells His Side
New audio has a white South Carolina state trooper telling a very different version of the events surrounding his shooting of an unarmed African-American man as the man reached into his car to retrieve his wallet. Video footage recorded on now-fired State Trooper Sean Groubert’s dash cam Sept. 4 shows Levar Jones, 35, reaching inside…
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Report: President Obama Rode Elevator With Armed Convict
With the Secret Service under intense scrutiny amid reports that an armed man jumped the fence at the White House and made it all the way to the East Room, the Associated Press is now reporting that earlier this month, the president was on an elevator with an “armed security contractor who had three criminal…
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Orphans of Ebola Are Being Ostracized by Cautious Relatives
As of press time, the first Ebola victim had been diagnosed here in the U.S.—and approximately 3,000 people have died because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. But what has been neglected and underreported are the children the dead are leaving behind. West African orphans, many of them with one or both parents deceased, are…
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Anti-Islam Ad Featuring Beheaded American Journalist Pulled by Hate Group
The only thing that stopped an anti-Islam advocacy group from running an incendiary ad in New York City’s bus and subway system is the phone call it got from the attorney representing the family of James Foley—the American journalist who was beheaded by ISIS in Syria—begging the organization not to. The ad would have featured Foley’s face…
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The Zimmerman Family: Everything You Didn’t Want to Know
The Zimmermans really know how to party on another person’s tab. According to a profile in the October issue of GQ magazine, George Zimmerman and his brother, Robert Jr.—who told the magazine that before George’s fatal 2012 shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, “he was the family f—kup”—racked up $3,600 in comped fees in February at…
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Mumia Abu-Jamal to Give Vermont’s Goddard College Commencement Speech
Students at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., have selected Pennsylvania inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to be their commencement speaker, Reuters reports. The liberal arts college will have the ceremony Sunday, when a recorded speech by the former death row prisoner will be played, the news agency notes. Abu-Jamal was at first sentenced to death after being…
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New Study Seeks to ‘Unlock Opportunity for African-American Girls’
A new report from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Women’s Law Center seeks to explain the reasons behind the often depressing statistics that black girls and women face. It’s a response to President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, the $200 million program for boys of color that received heavy…
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Man Accused of Beheading Co-Worker Is Charged With Murder; May Face Death Penalty
Charges were filed against Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen on Tuesday, the Smoking Gun reports. The 30-year-old man, who was recently fired from his job at a food plant in Moore, Okla., was charged with murder and assault after he allegedly attacked two female co-workers with a knife, resulting in one being beheaded, on Sept.…
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Can Crowdfunding Finance Your Dream?
Bill Duke, director of the highly acclaimed documentary Dark Girls, joins The Root Live: Bring It to the Table on Wednesday, Oct. 1, to talk about his experience with crowdfunding. The Root Live, sponsored by Prudential, is a weekly video series tackling financial concerns in the African-American community. Duke is joined in the discussion by Denmark…
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NYPD Cop Charged in Drunken Assault of Woman After Breaking Into Her Home
A New York City police officer pleaded innocent on Monday to charges that he beat up a woman after breaking into her apartment while wearing only underwear, New York’s Daily News reports. Officer Eugene Donnelly was arraigned in Bronx Supreme Court for the June 10 incident. Donnelly—who, mere hours before the alleged incident, was awarded…