culture

Zerlina Maxwell, writing at BET, delivers a stern message to women passing off bad relationship advice: We are not in the 1950s. She is responding to advice from the sandwich-making New York Post reporter and one of the “Housewives,” who essentially suggest that women cater to their men in order to keep them. It’s 2013, but…

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, at his Hutchinson Report News, says that the Republican Party’s debt-ceiling debate cannot be separated from its “never-ending hunt for any issue that can taint, embarrass and ultimately weaken the Obama presidency.” The GOP’s goal has altered only slightly since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s oft repeated, and failed, vow to make…

Usher visited the set of Sesame Street this week and sang the ABC song along with the cast in a version that will delight the old and young. “You guys ready?” he asked Elmo, Murray, Grover and Addy Cadabby before launching into an R&B version of the song. “Let’s do it,” he said. “Clap your…

(The Root) — “Oral history tells me that my paternal great, great, great grandfather, Sanford Mason, was born in Virginia and sold as a slave. “Sanford met and married Nancy Jewett, and they had three children: Joe, Jeff and Eve. At some point, because of slavery, the family was separated. Sanford went to fight in…

Why are we so angry? Amid escalating violence in America, Don Lemon raises the salient question at BlackAmericaWeb and explores solutions. I might sound happy this morning but I’m actually scared to walk outside of my house sometimes. Sometimes I’m scared to log onto social media. I’m nervous to turn on the TV. Because I…

Grantland‘s Rembert Browne checks in on Saturday Night Live’s history of race issues after some media critics and viewers complained loudly about the show’s six new cast members, all of whom are white. Saturday Night Live is a storied franchise that has found ways to cultivate stars until they’re ready to be released into the wild, while…

In a piece at Truthdig, Sonali Kolhatkar writes that Florida has a chance to redeem itself after George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Another man is on trial for taking the life of another black male teenager in a similar case, and hopefully the criminal-justice system will work this time, she writes.…

(The Root) — Drake’s new album, Nothing Was the Same, sold more than 658,000 units in its first week, with the single “Hold On, We’re Going Home” demoting Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” from the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The Toronto-born-and-bred MC’s personal best week ever puts him in second place…

A group of Tufts University researchers recently conducted a study about the appeal of what they call “outrage-based” political shows hosted by such polarizing figures as Rush Limbaugh on the right and Rachel Maddow on the left. They conclude that the reason people gravitate toward such fare is that it offers them a form of…