culture
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Dear Disgruntled Dater: We’re Sorry. Don’t Quit
It’s come to our attention that you might have had a less-than-stellar experience with a couple of our members. Specifically, upon meeting these young men on separate occasions, each asked you to buy him a drink. First, allow me to apologize on behalf of brothers everywhere for our members’ ghastly errors in judgment. This is…
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Study: White Americans Who Fear Minority Status More Likely to Shift Right
It’s commonly accepted that white Americans will no longer make up the majority of the population by 2050. However, what a new study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests is that the more fearful white Americans are of losing their majority status, the more conservative leaning they become, the Association for Psychological Science reports. Researchers…
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Detroit Teen Charged With Hate Crime in Brutal Mob Beating of Motorist
A 16-year-old Detroit boy was charged Thursday with assault and a hate crime in the brutal group beating of a 54-year-old man, Steve Utash, who stopped to check on a 10-year-old boy whom he had just struck with his pickup truck, the Associated Press reports. Yesterday Detroit police announced that they had arrested a fifth…
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The Latest From the National Action Network Convention
The National Action Network’s annual convention is under way this week in New York, featuring dozens of panel discussions tackling civil rights topics from voter repression to stop-and-frisk laws, as well as planned remarks by President Obama. The event’s primary goal, founder and president Al Sharpton told The Root, is to create an “action agenda”…
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MSU Fan Lacey Holsworth Dies of Cancer at Age 8
Lacey Holsworth met Michigan State player Adreian Payne while she was in the hospital, and the two became fast friends. Lacey Holsworth would attend all the games, cheering on Payne and the other members of the team. All would come to “adopt” her as their sister. On senior night, the 6-foot-10-inch center found the 8-year-old,…
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Mother, 2 Others Arrested in Boy’s Beating Posted as Facebook Video
An 11-year-old whose family was upset with his alleged thuggish behavior and possible gang involvement decided to teach him a lesson that included a videotaped whipping that was posted on Facebook. That lesson has led to three people being charged with assault, CBS Detroit reports. Demitria Latrion Powell, the child’s 28-year-old mother, Uteas Michelle Taylor,…
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Sir Mix-a-Lot to Perform With Seattle Symphony
Talk about mix-and-match. Rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot is set to perform with a symphony orchestra—the Seattle Symphony, to be precise—for a classical rendition of “Baby Got Back,” UPI reports. The piece was put together by composer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev (he is the grandson of the renowned Sergei Prokofiev), who wrote the unusual piece for the…
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Determined Young Men Refused to Stop Looking for Missing 9-Year-Old
Local officials stopped looking, calling off the search for little Patrauna Hudson about 6 p.m. on Monday night, a day after the girl was swept away by floodwaters in Yazoo City, Miss. However, 14 young men refused to stop looking, MSNewsNow reports. About an hour later, they found her in a drainage canal. Unfortunately, Patrauna…
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Writer Pearl Cleage Tells the Messy Stories of Her Life
By her 20s, Pearl Cleage was on a completely different trajectory, living the kind of life for which a Spelman College degree presumably prepped one: power career as press secretary-speechwriter to Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first black mayor; power marriage to up-and-coming politico Michael Lomax (now president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund); powerful friends occupying powerful…
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Barack Obama's Aunt, Zeituni Onyango, Dies at 61
Zeituni Onyango, the aunt of President Obama, became ill in January and passed away on Tuesday at the age of 61. According to NPR, Onyango had been receiving treatment for respiratory problems and cancer within recent months. She died at a Boston rehabilitation center in her sleep. Onyango moved to the United States in 2000.…