culture
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Calif. Equalizes Prison Sentencing for Crack and Cocaine Drug Crimes
Attorney General Eric Holder is probably smiling at this news. Critics of the criminal-justice system often call on the federal government to fix the prison-sentencing disparities that exist between black and white defendants convicted of drug crimes, but last week California showed that states have the power to correct that kind of racial discrimination, too. According to…
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NFL Player Accused of Sexual Assault Investigated by Police
A day after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell held a news conference to address the numerous accusations surrounding domestic violence and NFL players, the New York Daily News is reporting that a “Dallas Cowboys special-teams player was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at the team’s hotel in Texas” and was still allowed to play. According…
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Officials Investigating Ferguson Grand Jury for Misconduct
During a conversation on Twitter Wednesday, someone using the handle @thesusannichols claimed at 9:45 a.m. that the Ferguson, Mo., grand jury that is deciding whether to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown Aug. 9 didn’t have enough evidence to warrant an arrest. “I know someone sitting on the grand jury…
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This Is Not a Gun: So, Officers, Stop Shooting Unarmed Black Men
Too many black men have lost their lives because of encounters with police officers whose racially charged presumptions about what the men were holding in their hands informed their decision-making minutes before the men were gunned down. In fact, it’s what Jennifer L. Eberhardt, a Stanford psychologist and one of this year’s recipients of the…
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Jordan Davis Killer Convicted of 1st-Degree Murder
There is finally justice for 17-year-old Jordan Davis, the young man gunned down by Michael Dunn after a verbal dispute over loud music in a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station in November 2012. Dunn was found guilty of first-degree murder by a jury of eight men and four women who deliberated just five-and-a-half hours. A different…
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NYC Man Helps Wife Regain Memory
Just weeks after their marriage, these Queens, N.Y., newlyweds faced a heartbreaking dilemma. CBS New York reports that Raleigh and Tunicia Hall were married on June 28. On July 30 Tunicia suffered a brain hemorrhage that erased her short-term memory. “She didn’t know what year she was in. After two days, I said, ‘I gotta…
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Fla. Officer Investigated for Using Taser on 62-Year-Old Woman
A Tallahassee, Fla., police officer is on administrative leave while the department’s Internal Affairs investigates his use of a stun gun on a 62-year-old woman on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. The incident prompted a Wednesday news conference by police Chief Michael DeLeo, who affirmed that Internal Affairs would look into it after a video…
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Black Artistic and Political Achievement Celebrated by Harvard’s Hutchins Center
On Tuesday evening the second annual Hutchins Center Honors attracted a coterie of political and cultural celebrities to Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. The recipients—Oprah Winfrey, Harvey Weinstein, Shonda Rhimes, Steve McQueen, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Harry Belafonte and British architect David Adjaye—represent some of the world’s leading figures in politics, culture and entertainment. The late Maya Angelou…
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White Mother Sues Sperm Bank After Birth of Mixed-Race Daughter
A Chicago-area sperm bank is being sued by an Ohio woman for mistakenly giving her vials from an African-American donor, reports the Chicago Tribune. Jennifer Cramblett, who is white, filed a lawsuit stating that Midwest Sperm Bank gave her the vials of a black man instead of the white man she and her partner had…
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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross Snags Emmy Win
Editor-in-Chief of The Root Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr.’s documentary series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross took home the Emmy for Outstanding Historical Program—Long Form at the 35th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards Tuesday night at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City. The documentary, which premiered in 2013 on…