culture
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Biker Paralyzed in NY Highway Incident Says He Doesn’t Blame SUV Driver
Edwin Mieses, a New York motorcyclist who was severely injured during a violent West Side Highway altercation involving his group of biker friends and the driver of an SUV, said he doesn’t blame the man who ran him over, the New York Post reports. The 32-year-old was paralyzed from the waist down in the September…
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Remembering Chokwe Lumumba: A Revolutionary Politician
Editor’s note: Chokwe Lumumba died suddenly of heart failure last week at the age of 66. The black nationalist, who at one time advocated for a separate nation for blacks inside the U.S., was elected mayor of Jackson, Miss., last year. His funeral will be held this Saturday. Three years ago, Amiri Baraka delivered the…
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Seriously, Chelsea Handler? You’re Going With the ‘Black Boyfriend’ Defense?
Though Chelsea Handler’s real sin may be the fact that she’s painfully unfunny, she managed to offend this week for another reason. While guest live-tweeting for the Huffington Post during Sunday’s Academy Awards broadcast, she provoked cries of racism at worst and racial insensitivity at best when, after Lupita Nyong’o was named the winner of…
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Florida KKK Recruiter: ‘We Don’t Beat Up on Blacks or Burn Crosses’
There’s a red Ku Klux Klan flag flying somewhere in Boca Raton, Fla., because one resident is trying to recruit people to join the organization. The man, who identified himself only as “Mr. Hayes,” said he’s flying the flag above a “Members Wanted” sign because it’s “what this country is all about—freedom of speech.” He…
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Lupita Nyong’o’s Lip Balm Sells Out After Grabbing Social Media Fame
Who needs expensive marketing strategies when you’ve got Lupita Nyong’o as a customer? As it turns out, French cosmetics brand Clarins struck luck on Sunday when Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o jokingly pulled out one of their lip balms to offer host Ellen DeGeneres as a tip for the pizza guy, the New York Daily News…
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‘Spoiled’ Teen Denied $650 a Week in Child Support
A New Jersey teen who took her parents to court seeking child support after being tossed out of their Lincoln Park home has been shut down after a judge ruled against her, saying the high school cheerleader was “spoiled,” the New York Daily News reports. On Tuesday, Morristown Superior Court Judge Peter Bogaard ruled against…
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Former World Champion Boxer Arrested in Florida
Former world champion boxer Antonio Tarver was arrested in Florida earlier this week on a felony theft and bad check warrant stemming from unpaid IOUs at a Las Vegas Strip casino, the Associated Press reports. The Florida Highway Patrol arrested Tarver after a traffic stop led to the discovery of a warrant, which had been…
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Missing Florida Mom Found in Sunken Car Near Universal Studios
The body of a missing Florida mother was discovered on Monday in a sunken car in a pond near Universal Studios Orlando, the New York Daily News reports. Carline Brumaire Jean’s Toyota Camry was pulled from the pond next to the Royal Pacific Hotel, where she worked as a housekeeper, the site notes. Her death…
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Black College Students Launch Artistic Social Media Campaigns About Race
The 1990s babies matriculating at top-tier universities are in the midst of active protest. They have been for a while now. Back in November, several black students at the University of Michigan launched a social media campaign on Twitter, using the hashtag #BBUM, an acronym for “being black at the University of Michigan,” to describe…
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Lupita’s Spotlight: A Reality Check for Light-Skinned Women?
The scene Sunday night: an Oscar-watching party. The topic: of course, beautiful Lupita’s fairy-tale moment. So my friends and I naturally start tweeting and talking about what it all means. I make what I think is a fairly innocuous point. I told one of my friends that finally—all these years after Dark Girls and Good Hair…