culture
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Microsoft’s New Leadership: Is Tech Embracing Diversity? Not Quite
A remarkable aspect of Microsoft’s announcement of new leadership this week is that hardly anyone brought up the issue of race. Yet the biggest software company in the world will now be led by an Indian-American chief executive officer and an African-American chairman. The announcement that insider Satya Nadella, 46, will become the third CEO of…
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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Set to Launch YouTube Show
Can’t get enough of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford? Now you can watch his antics all the time as he and his brother, a city councillor, are launching a YouTube show called Ford Nation that is set to air Feb. 10, the Associated Press reports. In a preview for the show posted Thursday, Ford asks that…
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High School Football Players Claim White Rivals Called Them ‘N–gers’
A heated rivalry between two high school football teams erupted in a huge sideline-clearing brawl, which five black high school football players from Long Island are claiming started after they were called the n-word by the players and coaches, the New York Daily News reports. The black players from Amityville High School, which would lose…
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Family of Man Firefighters Refused to Help Wants Justice
Medric Mills, 77, and his daughter had just finished dropping off a broken computer at a repair shop on Jan. 25 when he collapsed onto the sidewalk. His daughter ran back into the store to have them call 911. Since they repair shop was across the street from a fire department, people ran there for…
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Shani Davis: Skating for History, Not Love
Speed skater Shani Davis will go down in history for his succession of Winter Olympic firsts, most notably as the first African-American athlete to win an individual gold at the Winter Games. But in his own sport, he is celebrated for his extraordinary record of sustained excellence. Over the past decade, Davis has dominated speed…
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How the Urban Bush Women Got Their Name
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal visits with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in the Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University. Zollar and her dance troupe, Urban Bush Women, are partaking in a two-week residency at Duke University. Urban Bush Women celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Watch:
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AIDS Activist Michael Tikili: ‘I Saw My Reflection, I Saw the HIV Infection’
Five years ago, Michael Tikili had a hard time looking at himself in the mirror because every time he saw his reflection, he saw “the infection.” Hearing, in 2009, that he had contracted HIV had shaken him to his core. The 23-year-old African-American Duke University graduate racked his brain to figure out how this could…
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AIDS Outreach Declined As Minority Cases Grew
Dr. Anthony Jones has been an HIV/AIDS specialist for more than 15 years. During that time the Oakland, Calif., primary care physician has become more and more discouraged as he has watched the AIDS epidemic in the San Francisco Bay area become increasingly more of a problem for the African-American community. “We’re really at a…
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30 Years Into the AIDS Epidemic, Blacks Still Don’t Get Enough Treatment and Care
“All African Americans deserve lifesaving HIV prevention, testing, care, and treatment services.” That was the message of a statement issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday. It came with new data about a still-unmet need in the black community—more than 30 years after the first HIV and AIDS cases were identified—when it…
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California School Plans Fried Chicken and Watermelon Lunch For Black History Month
File under how not to celebrate Black History Month. Carondelet High School for Girls in Concord, California, is under fire after announcing a Black History Month lunch special menu of fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon. Students at the Northern California private school had been brainstorming ways to celebrate Black History Month. The lunch menu was…