culture
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26-Year-Old Running Back Retires: ‘I Feel Like I’ve Done It All’
Arizona Cardinals free agent running back Rashard Mendenhall is retiring from football, ESPN reports. Mendenhall, 26, alluded to the fact that his days of playing in the NFL might be coming to an end in a Feb. 25 column he wrote for the Huffington Post, in which he said, “As I write this, today is the…
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Parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis Protest ‘Stand Your Ground’
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the parents of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, as well as Tom Joyner and members of the Dream Defenders, are once again marching for change to Florida’s “Stand your ground” law, Tallahassee.com reports. Joined by hundreds of other marchers, the group—including family members of Emmett Till—traveled less than a mile from the…
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12 Years a Slave’s John Ridley Talks Beef With Director Steve McQueen
12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley is aware of the drama surrounding himself and director Steve McQueen. While promoting the U.S. premiere of the Hendrix biopic Jimi: All Is By My Side at SXSW this past weekend, Ridley looked to bury the hatchet. What began over screenwriter credits and escalated to an Academy Award-speech…
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High School Wrestler Brings Crowd to Tears in Classy Move After Loss
A Minnesota high school wrestler showed the crowd the true meaning of a champion after a tough loss in the state championship match, news station KARE 11 reports. After losing the title to Mitchell McKee, Malik Stewart went over and embraced McKee’s father, Steve, who is battling terminal cancer. “I got a little teary because…
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Dick Cheney: ‘No Question’ Vladimir Putin Thinks President Obama Is Weak
Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes that President Obama shouldn’t take military options off the table in response to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. And the former VP also thinks that there is “no question” that President Vladimir Putin believes President Barack Obama is weak, Yahoo News reports. “I worry when we begin to address the…
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Because of Bipolar Disorder, I Wasn’t Sure I’d Make It to 25
I’ve often thought of doing what Sylvia Plath described so poetically: “I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists … till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies.” Ever the poet, even my suicidal ideations are perfectly crafted for greatest artistic impact.…
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How an Interracial-Dating Web Series Gets Everything Wrong
Relationships between people who claim different racial identities aren’t new (hey, Barack Obama’s parents, tons of other Americans and, according to the hope to which some fans are still clinging, Lupita and Jared). Nor are they all that controversial these days. (A full 86 percent of Americans approve of black-white pairings, for example.) So while it’s…
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It Takes a Village to Protect a Child With ASD
The death of 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo this January brought attention to autism spectrum disorders among communities of color and the awareness of the need to protect autistic children from wandering, eloping or “bolting” from safe spaces. One of few children of color whose search—when he went missing from school—prompted mainstream media attention, Avonte brought a brown face to ASD. “In general,…
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SNL’s Sasheer Zamata Shines as Olivia Pope in Scandal Spoof
Dressed in a flawless white pantsuit while barking orders, Saturday Night Live’s Sasheer Zamata shined in her first big role as Scandal’s Olivia Pope. Zamata, who joined the show in January, is the first female African-American cast member to join the show in several years. But on Saturday, she delivered the performance of a veteran…
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Detroit Officer Investigated in Rape of Domestic Violence Caller
A Detroit police officer has been charged in connection with the sexual assault of a woman, after he responded to a 911 call about a domestic dispute, according to MyFoxDetroit. The officer, Deon Nunlee, 40, was arraigned Friday and charged with three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of assault with intent to…