culture
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Teacher Accused of Repeatedly Locking 8-Year-Old Special Needs Student in Locker
As it turns out, a “bully” who cruelly and recurrently locked a special needs 8-year-old boy in a school locker was a teacher, and although paraprofessional Jeremy Turner has been fired, the boy’s mother is seeking $1 million from the New York City Department of Education for the horrible incidents, the New York Post reports.…
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4 Kids Hospitalized After Texas Mom Let Them Ride on Car Hood and Trunk
A Texas mom is facing charges of intoxication assault after authorities say she allowed six children—ranging from ages 8 to 14—to ride on the hood and truck of her Chevrolet Malibu because their clothes were wet after a trip to the community pool, NBC 5 reports. Four of those children were rushed to the hospital,…
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Holler if Ya Hear Me: How Tupac’s ‘Thug Life’ Translates to Broadway
Watching Holler if Ya Hear Me, Broadway’s ode to all things Tupac, I can’t help but wonder what it is about the Great White Way that neutralizes even the edgiest of material. Maybe it’s the live orchestra jamming away; maybe it’s the bright lights; maybe it’s all those jazz hands—or maybe it’s the effort to…
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When Did My Ancestor Buy His Freedom?
Family legend says that my great-great-great-great-grandfather Isom Ellis was a free man of color who bought his freedom and later that of his wife, Patience Bynum. I’d love to know more about him. He was born in 1802 in Wilson County, N.C. I believe he had a son named Robert. —Kevin J. Hagan Jr. Your…
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How Hip-Hop Has Become a Gateway to Black Poetry
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Elizabeth Alexander to discuss the black art aesthetic, growing recognition for black poets and whether hip-hop is poetry. Alexander—the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies, and a professor of American studies and English, at Yale University—was chosen by President Barack Obama to compose…
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Think Like a Man Too Pushes Back on the ‘Black Movie’ Label, Again
Before 12 Years a Slave turned Chiwetel and Lupita into household names and became a blockbuster “black movie”—whatever that means—it was 2012’s Think Like a Man that was an unlikely hit. The loose adaptation of Steve Harvey’s self-help book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man earned nearly $100 million and forced the film industry…
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Let’s Remember Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner—and All Those Who Died for Democracy in Miss.
Freedom Summer had just begun, and hundreds of white, Northern college students had volunteered to do civil rights work in Mississippi as news broke that three men—Michael “Mickey” Schwerner, a 24-year-old full-time activist for the Congress of Racial Equality; James Chaney, a local, 21-year-old CORE activist; and Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old Freedom Summer volunteer—had disappeared in…
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Dallas Commissioners Mistakenly Back Reparations for Blacks
Here’s something you don’t see every day. On Tuesday the Dallas County Commissioners Court voted in favor of giving African Americans reparations for slavery—but didn’t quite mean to do so, the Dallas Morning News reports. According to the news site, the resolution, written by the only black commissioner in the county, John Wiley Price, was…
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Dallas County and Parkland Hospital Executives Set Example in Push for a Living Wage
Brittany Florence, who cleans floors for a living at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, will earn a living wage for the very first time. “I can save money and move into my own place now,” Florence told ABC affiliate WFAA 8. Next month Florence, 25, will see her wage increase by $1.50 an hour, reports WFAA.…
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More Than 300 Deaths Now Reported in West Africa Related to the Ebola Virus
Approximately 337 people have succumbed to the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, the World Health Organization reports, according to the BBC. With about 14 deaths and 47 new outbreaks ripping through the area over the past week, the organization has listed Guinea as the worst affected area, with 264 related deaths, followed by Sierra Leone…