culture
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4-Year-Old Girl Fatally Shoots 4-Year-Old Male Cousin
A 4-year-old girl fatally shot her 4-year-old cousin while they were playing with a gun on Thursday, Detroit police said, according to CNN. Three children, all cousins, the oldest of whom was 5 and unharmed, were in a home on the city’s west side at the time of the shooting, reports say. According to Detroit…
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Hollywood Doesn’t Recognize the Complexity of Black Life
This should have been the year that black directors dominated the Oscars. In 2013 several black filmmakers produced and directed well-crafted films that examine black life. Of that group, three in particular—Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) and Lee Daniels (The Butler)—created films of historic significance, each of which explores a…
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12 Years a Slave Wins Best Picture at the Critics’ Choice Awards
The lead-up to the Academy Awards is getting intense as last night’s Broadcast Film Critics Association presented its annual awards ceremony in Santa Monica, Calif., honoring several movies that had earned Oscar nominations hours earlier, the Associated Press reports. 12 Years a Slave, the favorite by Vegas oddsmakers for Oscar’s top billing, walked away with…
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High School Suspends Black Basketball Players, Claiming Gang-Related Hand Signs
A Wisconsin school district is standing by its decision to suspend two black basketball players because the signals they were making with their hands looked gang-related, saying that proper procedure was followed, the Raw Story reports. It all started at the beginning of the month when a local newspaper, the Sheboygan Falls News, ran what…
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Watch Out for the Ladies of Late Night
Sasheer Zamata is set to debut on Saturday Night Live this weekend. It’s been five years since an African-American female was part of the cast. But Zamata will have some company in the halls of NBC’s Rockefeller Center. Take a look at the new ladies of late night. Amber Ruffin is an alumna of Second…
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Arkansas State Football Player Markel Owens and Stepfather Killed in Robbery
An Arkansas State football player who was trying to shield his family from robbers was shot to death, along with his stepfather, the New York Daily News reports. Markel Owens, a 21-year-old junior defensive lineman for the Red Wolves, was fatally shot along with Johnny Shivers, 36, during the robbery at a duplex in Jackson,…
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Dad Who Shot Daughter, 11, Denied Funeral Pass
A Cincinnati man charged in the accidental shooting death of his 11-year-old daughter was denied a temporary release to attend his daughter’s funeral after a judge cited security concerns, CNN reports. Judge Nadine Allen denied a motion filed by a lawyer for Deandre Kelley, 34, because she was concerned that people might want to hurt…
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Michelle Obama Through the Years
In honor of first lady Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday—she’ll be celebrating it at a White House bash this Saturday—The Root decided to take a look back at her early years. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born on Jan. 17, 1964, in Chicago. She was a student at Bryn Mawr Elementary School. Here she is at Princeton…
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A Single Dad Sees Race Through His Children’s Eyes
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with David Ikard to discuss Ikard’s new book, Blinded by the Whites: Why Race Still Matters in the 21st Century. Ikard is a visiting associate professor at the University of Miami. Watch the interview:
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‘What Would MLK Think?’ We Don’t Know, So Let’s Stop Asking
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up, and you know what that means: lots of talk about who has to go to work and who doesn’t. Plentiful “I Have a Dream” recitations. An annual reminder to elementary school kids across the country that it’s not nice at all to judge people based on the…