culture

Brandon Brice, at the Washington Times, asks whether President Barack Obama could do more to help historically black colleges and universities. The federal government prepares to enact a new set of loan-eligibility requirements, which could greatly reduce enrollments. Imagine if black colleges didn’t exist. What if the ability of black students to attend or complete…

(The Root) — First do no harm. That’s the golden rule of medicine. But a new analysis of a trio of AIDS-vaccine trials shows that’s exactly what happened in two of the three studies. In trials conducted across four continents with a combined total of more than 6,000 participants, vaccines using a flulike virus that…

(The Root) — When Gabby Douglas became the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the individual all-around competition, her triumph sparked a great deal of discussion about the sport’s lack of diversity. As Douglas’ own long struggle to succeed made clear, training and traveling costs are great obstacles to many aspiring…

Jeff Stratton started out working behind a McDonald’s counter in Detroit nearly 40 years ago. Now he’s president of McDonald’s U.S.A. Not bad. With such roots, it would seem that he would have strong relationships with workers, from those in corporate suites to the line cooks. Perhaps he does, but that certainly did not appear…

(The Root) — In just the first four minutes of last week’s season premiere of Scandal, giddy gladiators finally got a glimpse of what life must have been like in the Pope residence. And, for anyone who grew up under the thumb of an exacting parent, that scene looked all too familiar. As it turns…

(The Root) — “The love of my life played my ‘Big’ for five years. He wined and dined, bought gifts, we went on trips, etc. He is in a relationship. I am recently single. He wants to do dinner so we can have a serious talk. ‘No B.S.,’ is what he said. What is there…

Wendy Jane Grossman delivers a humorous piece at her blog, Wendy Jane’s Soul Shake, about a white woman who explores black Twitter. “I started feeling like a lurker, who was just trying to be cool by being a part of something I can’t really be on the inside of because … I’m not black. But,…

Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN, writes at CNN that she is pleased that President Barack Obama has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the name of the Washington Redskins. His recent suggestion that the owner consider changing the team’s name could help end a long and divisive debate that has raised concerns about…

In the aftermath of the shooting death of unarmed Miriam Carey by police, The Nation‘s Mychal Denzel Smith writes about how America routinely condones unchecked violence against black women. The US House of Representatives applauded the death of Miriam Carey before they knew who she was. They didn’t know about her postpartum depression, or that she talked…