culture
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Teen Whose Dad Died Shielding Her: ‘I Am Going to Make Him Proud’
“I am going to make him proud,” Masharah Tingling told the Chicago Tribune after her father, Michael Tingling, died Wednesday protecting her from an ex-convict during a sidewalk confrontation on the city’s North Side. Her father was looking forward to the eighth-grader’s graduation this spring from Chicago Math and Science Academy, said a friend, Carmen Preister. Preister…
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University of Alabama Student Leaders Block Greek Integration Bill
Six months after the campus newspaper reported on apparent racial discrimination in the University of Alabama pledging system, the student government on Thursday failed to pass a bill to support full integration of the school’s system of Greek fraternities and sororities, according to AL.com. The Senate of the Student Government Association (SGA) sent the measure…
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Don Lemon Won’t Rule Out the Supernatural in Malaysia Airliner Mystery
While governments, inspectors and even President Obama are ramping up efforts to find out exactly what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, CNN host Don Lemon isn’t ready to take supernatural and biblical theories off the table. On Sunday, Lemon said: “Especially today, on a day when we deal with the supernatural, we go to…
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Why Are Black People Nearly 4 Times as Likely to Be Arrested for Weed?
Millions of people each year are arrested for marijuana possession, but a black person is 3.73 times as likely as a white person to be arrested for the same offense. That, says the American Civil Liberties Union, is a form of racial injustice. So, this week, the organization launched The Uncovery, an advocacy tool that lets…
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Judge Upholds Firing of Police Officer Who Shared Rihanna Injury Photos
A judge has upheld the firing of a police officer who distributed an evidence photo showing injuries singer Rihanna sustained after she was attacked by then boyfriend Chris Brown. The photo found its way onto the celebrity website TMZ, the Associated Press reports. Former Los Angeles police officer Rebecca Reyes took a picture of an…
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It’s Official: Aaron McGruder Out at Boondocks
Aaron McGruder, creator and executive producer of The Boondocks, has had no involvement with the upcoming fourth season of the cartoon, Adult Swim confirms, fueling suspicions that began on Facebook, where McGruder claimed The Boondocks page had been “hijacked.” According to a press release issued by Adult Swim, “this season was produced without the involvement of…
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Officials Investigating Reported Confession in Kendrick Johnson Case
A communications company has been ordered to release Internet records after an anonymous email was sent to investigators declaring that an ex-schoolmate had confessed to killing Georgia teen Kendrick Johnson, CNN reports. According to the news network—which managed to obtain the e-mail and the subpoena—the email was from Jan. 27, with the sender claiming that…
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15 Famous 1st Black Tweets: Thanks, Twitter!
To celebrate the microblogging site’s own eighth birthday, this week the folks at Twitter unveiled their new #FirstTweet finder page—an easy way to see what your tweeps said when they first jumped into the Twitter fray. It’s also an easy way to see if your favorite notables had any Twitter game when they first joined.…
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Can the Media Keep Up With Modern Black Families?
In the decades since 1978, when Hampton University held its first conference dedicated to unpacking the issues facing black families, plenty of aspects of American life have changed for people of all races. At the 36th annual event, held this week on the campus of the Virginia HBCU, participants took a critical look at the…
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Former Police Captain Released for 2nd Time in Ex-Wife’s Murder Case
He had already spent nearly 15 years in prison for the killing of his ex-wife, but somehow on Thursday morning former Akron, Ohio officer Douglas Prade found himself in custody once again while at a morning hearing, the Associated Press reports. An appeals court had found the judge who freed him based on DNA testing—showing…