culture
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Friends of Oscar Grant Settle With Bay Area Rapid Transit
Friends who were with Oscar Grant the night he was fatally shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer have settled with the transit agency, the Associated Press reports. The five men—Jack Bryson Jr., Nigel Bryson, Michael Greer, Carlos Reyes and Fernando Anicete Jr.—will divvy up $175,000 among them as part of the settlement…
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Mark Cuban: If I See a Black Guy in a Hoodie I Cross the Street
While the NBA is still reeling from embattled Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist rant that was caught on tape, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban may have added some more fuel to the fire. Speaking at the annual GrowCo conference, a startup-meets-successful-company-representatives gathering on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., the outspoken Cuban warned the audience…
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How Mike Myers Felt Being the Guy Next to Kanye West
Mike Myers will forever be the guy next to Kanye West when the enigmatic rapper decided to make an impromptu change during a 2005 Hurricane Katrina telethon. That is when West went off-script and called out President George W. Bush with the infamous “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” comment. In the upcoming issue…
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Mom: Cop Slams Handcuffed Teen Through Plate-Glass Window
A 14-year-old Bronx, N.Y., boy underwent emergency surgery to remove shards of glass from his chest, lungs and heart after his mother says police handcuffed her son and then slammed his head through a plate-glass window for mouthing off. In a New York Daily News exclusive, Cherita Payne says her son Javier has no prior…
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In the Face of New Violence, Nigerians Are Hopeful That Their Missing Girls Will Return
Over the last two days, Boko Haram, the group claiming responsibility for the abduction of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls several weeks ago, has been blamed for several attacks on villages near Chibok, where they were kidnapped. On Tuesday, the BBC reports, 118 people were killed in a bombing in the town of Jos, and…
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We’re Still Living With the Specter of Sam Greenlee’s Spook Who Sat by the Door
Sam Greenlee was underappreciated, disgruntled, professionally disemboweled and perpetually agitated. His sudden death at the age of 83 offers opportunity for reflection on a man trapped in the suspended animation of one great work that briefly elevated, then haunted, him into his last days. An apprehensive and highly educated foreign service officer who abruptly quit…
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We’re Dreaming if We Think We’ve Dealt With Racism
In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois opined that one of the burdens of blackness was facing down an ever-present question: “How does it feel to be a problem?” More than a century later, the changes on our social and political landscape have led us to an equally challenging question: How do you solve a problem like…
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5-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Beaten and Forced to Smoke Pot
A 26-year-old man is facing criminal charges after allegedly forcing a 5-year-old girl to smoke marijuana, KOIN reports. Marquise Rashad Harris-Hill was arraigned on Monday for first-degree criminal mistreatment, third-degree assault, unlawful application of a controlled substance to another person, “unlawfully causing another individual to ingest a controlled substance and unlawful delivery of marijuana to a…
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Lawsuit: NFL Gave Former Players Risky Drugs to Mask Severe Injuries
A lawsuit filed on behalf of eight former NFL players alleges that that league was so profit driven that it illegally administered narcotics and painkillers to mask severe injuries, the Associated Press reports. Those players are now claiming that the risky treatments have resulted in pricey and painful medical complications. According to AP, which got…
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Here’s the Deal on Nigeria
For many Americans, Nigeria is an enigma. On the one hand, many Nigerian immigrants come to America and make a killing: They put their student visas to good use, gain admission to selective medical residency programs, get engineering jobs and raise first-generation African-American students who go on to attend the best universities this nation has…