culture
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How Do You Prove Your Heritage to Skeptics? You Don’t
How do you prove your Mexican heritage to skeptics? In the latest Ask Me Anything on Reddit, our Race Manners advice columnist tackles this question and weighs in on concerns surrounding the fate of black-dominated music categories and the nature of her interactions with readers. Read the highlights here: PatrickBeccarra: I am the whitest, palest…
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Single Parents: You Don’t Have to Do It Alone
When I was 10, after my parents divorced, my mother became a single parent, raising four kids practically on her own. I still don’t know how she managed at times, but she wasn’t without help. The one thing I can say that made a huge difference was the fact that, even before Hillary Clinton spoke…
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Duck Dynasty Star to Attend the State of the Union Address
Willie Robertson, one of the stars of Duck Dynasty, was invited by Rep. Vance McAllister (R-La.) to attend Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Deadline reports. Robertson, who is CEO of the family’s company, Duck Commander, will be one of the more “celebrity”-status individuals there. Another one will be openly gay NBA player Jason…
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NYC Man Found Dead in ER After Waiting 8 Hours
Jon Verrier, a 30-year-old New York City native, was found dead in Saint Barnabas Hospital’s waiting room, where he had been waiting for about eight hours to see a doctor, hospital officials have confirmed, the Raw Story reports. “He was found stiff, blue and cold,” an employee told ABC News. “He died because (there’s) not…
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Beyoncé Is a Grown Woman and Can Do What She Wants
When it was announced that entertainment’s “it” couple, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Jay Z, would be performing at the Grammys—the opening act, no less—I knew it wasn’t going to go well. They were undoubtedly going to perform their latest hit, “Drunk in Love,” an ode to liquor and the joys of marital sex, replete with raunchy…
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Quentin Tarantino Sues Gawker for Leaked Script
Things are about to get ugly for the folks over at Gawker. Quentin Tarantino has served the gossip and news website with a lawsuit for a post that linked readers to a leaked copy of the screenwriter’s latest film project, The Hateful Eight, the Associated Press reports. The lawsuit accuses Gawker Media LLC of contributory…
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4 Black Filmmakers Make Waves at Sundance
This year’s Sundance Film Festival concluded with four black directors leaving Park City, Utah, with awards. Although none of the four won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize, as Fruitvale Station did last year, the fact that so many black filmmakers took home honors shows that black independent films are thriving. This year’s Audience Award for…
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West Virginia Man Kills New Black Neighbor
A man from Barboursville, W.Va., fatally shot his new neighbor and the neighbor’s brother without warning as the two men were inspecting their property, New York’s Daily News reports. Rodney Bruce Black, 62, told authorities that he thought his victims were breaking into a building he owned. However, although the building is on land that…
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Government Looks to Prevent Spying on Its Spying
The U.S. government doesn’t want people looking at the phone records of the people whom they are spying on. The Associated Press has learned that while the Obama administration is considering moving its collection of phone-surveillance records from the National Security Agency to be stored at phone companies or elsewhere, it is also funding research…
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2nd Grand Jury Indicts Officer in Fatal Shooting of Unarmed Man
A North Carolina grand jury on Monday has rectified what many considered an injustice by indicting an officer who shot and killed an unarmed former Florida A&M football player, the New York Daily News reports. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Randall Kerrick, 27, now faces a voluntary-manslaughter charge for the September 2013 shooting in which Kerrick is…