culture
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Oscar-Nominated Actor Barkhad Abdi Is Broke
This isn’t a Hollywood rags-to-riches story, yet. Despite being Oscar-nominated for his role in the movie Captain Phillips, actor Barkhad Abdi is allegedly broke. According to the New Yorker, the actor was paid only $65,000 for his role as Muse, a Somali pirate. Captain Phillips went on to earn $210 million worldwide. The New Yorker…
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Free Advice and Free Gifts: How to Succeed in Business
This month I’m celebrating my 15th anniversary in business and thinking back on all I have learned. If you want to learn the secret to becoming an entrepreneur and running a thriving small business, I share here five things that will help you succeed. I have met thousands of business owners around the country, and…
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Marissa Alexander’s Sentence Could Triple in Retrial
Marissa Alexander could be slapped with a 60-year prison sentence, triple the length of her original 20-year sentence, when she goes up for retrial in July for aggravated assault, the Florida Times-Union reports. According to reports, State Attorney Angela Corey will now push to have the entire 60 years served if Alexander is convicted again,…
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Will and Jaden Smith Win Worst Actor Awards for After Earth
While celebrities were gliding the red carpet and scooping up Oscars Sunday, Will and Jaden Smith received honors they probably could’ve done without: They were both given Razzies for their roles in After Earth, the Associated Press reports. Golden Raspberry Awards are given each year to movies that suck and to actors whose performances also…
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Michael Jackson’s Estate Now Flush With Cash
When Michael Jackson died almost five years ago, his finances were a disaster. Comedians joked that the llamas on his Neverland ranch were going to be sold as tall pit-bulls in Los Angeles just to recoup money owed to collectors. Now the executors are claiming that the estate is not only out of the black…
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Wage Fight Pushes 22-Year-Old KFC Worker Into National Spotlight
Naquasia LeGrand was tired. She had been working at two KFC restaurants, 15 hours at the first and then hiking it across to work whatever hours she could get at the the other store. Some nights after a full day of frying chicken, sweeping floors and serving customers, she would close the store at 1…
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Girls With Guns, Boys With Dolls: Does It Matter?
The first toy I fell in love with was a red dump truck I received after a cousin said he was tired of it. Here was a 4-year-old girl, in pigtails and ribbons, dragging a dump truck around after my mother rigged it with a rope. At that age, all I knew was that the…
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The Wild Adventures of a ‘Colored Girl’ in the Early 20th Century
Anita Thompson Dickinson Reynolds was the black—or mocha—Zelig, traipsing continents at will, dancing on Broadway, acting in Hollywood with Rudolph Valentino, toiling as a journalist during the Spanish Civil War, slumming it with French royalty—all the while rubbing shoulders with the likes of Coco Chanel, Ernest Hemingway, Charlie Chaplin and W.E.B. Du Bois. As Reynolds…
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Some of My Best Friends Are White
While reading the many news stories that appear in my in-box each morning, I eventually get to the articles that center on race and racism. I save this part for last because know I’m going to read about an attitude or injustice that will piss me off, and I prefer to let my anger build…
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12 Years a Slave Wins Oscar for Best Picture
The brilliant yet brutal 12 Years a Slave made history Sunday night as the first film directed by a black man, with a predominately black cast, to win an Oscar for best picture. In one of the most competitive Oscar races in recent memory, the honor was bestowed tonight at the 86th Academy Awards. Producer…