culture
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Wins National Book Critics Circle Prize
Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose voice was sampled in Beyoncé’s hit “Flawless,” has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel Americanah, BBC News reports. Americanah tells the story of a Nigerian woman who moves to the U.S. to pursue a college education. “I don’t know race in the way an African…
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Texas Father Arrested in Connection With the Deaths of a Lesbian Couple
On Wednesday, authorities arrested a Texas man in connection with the deaths of two women, one of whom was his daughter. According to Lone Star Q, James Larry Cosby was charged with evidence tampering. Cosby was allegedly “not happy” about his daughter Britney Cosby’s relationship with girlfriend Crystal Jackson. Britney’s body, along with that of her…
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Texas Father Shoots 17-Year-Old Boy in Daughter’s Room
A Spring, Texas, father shot and killed a 17-year-old boy whom his daughter had apparently sneaked into her bedroom. The dad allegedly thought he was an intruder, KHOU-TV reports. According to investigators, the unidentified man’s 16-year-old daughter had brought Johran McCormick to her room in the middle of the night. Her younger brother, who had…
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Scandal Recap: The Murder Capital
Remember Jay Z’s song “Lucifer”? The one with the great Kanye beat from The Black Album about crime and why we do the bad things we do? Well, it’s pretty much the theme song for last night’s episode—demons are all over the place and redemption seems impossible for just about everyone. “No Sun on the…
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Social Media Helps Break the Silence Around Domestic Violence
When aspiring model Mori Montgomery posted photos of the horrific injuries she allegedly sustained at the hands of her boyfriend, she shocked cyberspace. But she may have done more than that. Her courage may play a role in ending the stigma that often silences survivors of domestic violence. Besides actual violence, the silence that accompanies…
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Colin Powell’s Throwback Thursday Selfie Is a Must-See
Colin Powell took to Facebook on “Throwback Thursday” to show the youngsters and Ellen DeGeneres that they had nothing on him when it comes to taking selfies. DeGeneres currently holds the record for most retweeted photo ever for the impromptu selfie she organized at the Academy Awards earlier last month. “I was doing selfies 60…
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Kendrick Johnson’s Classmates Called to Testify in Federal Grand Jury Investigation
A federal grand jury investigating the 2013 death of high school teen Kendrick Johnson, who was found inside a rolled gym mat, have subpoenaed former schoolmates and their parents, according to sources with knowledge of the subpoenas, CNN reports. According to a CNN source with knowledge of the investigation, the FBI—which launched an investigation four…
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Man Dies 2 Weeks After Being Pronounced Dead
The Mississippi man who was erroneously pronounced dead two weeks ago, but began kicking inside the body bag at the funeral home, passed away on Thursday, a coroner said, Reuters reports. “I think he’s gone this time,” nephew Eddie Hester told a local television station. Walter Williams, 78, had a brush with death a mere…
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How the Communal Experience of Music Has Changed
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Professor Guthrie Ramsey Jr. to talk about how music today is made, shared and studied. Ramsey is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and recently published The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and…
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It’s Time to Quit Operating on CP Time
I received this text message from a dear friend of mine last weekend: “You usually don’t ask dumb questions. But this will go down as one of them.” She was responding to a text I’d just sent, asking her a pretty innocent question. It was certainly one that on the surface wouldn’t seem to elicit such…