culture

Dash Harris, writing at For Harriet, describes her surprise that the media have taken an interest in the story of Jakiyah McCoy, a 7-year-old Afro-Latina beauty-pageant winner who had her title revoked because pageant officials wanted her to prove that she was Latino. Since when has mainstream media ever cared about Latinos of African descent…

In Al Sharpton’s new biography, The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership, the reverend gives his life story a much-needed update since his first biography was published in 1996. Sharpton has evolved from a fiery civil rights activist with a flashy perm to a still-controversial but arguably more respected public figure, who…

(The Root) — In late August it was revealed that Merrill Lynch, one of the nation’s oldest financial institutions, would settle a class action lawsuit brought by African-American employees alleging discrimination. By settling, the firm became one of the few major players on Wall Street to acknowledge something that has been whispered about for years…

In the face of growing diversity in America, the National Policy Institute is working to create an intellectual class of white separatists, Lauren M. Fox writes in an illuminating piece at Salon. Richard Spencer sat sipping his chai latte at the Red Caboose, a train-themed coffee shop in downtown Whitefish, Mont. Clean-cut and restrained, he…

Krystol Diggs, in a blog post at CNN iReport, describes the harrowing police profiling that two Hollywood actors, Cherie Johnson and Dennis White, had to endure. “I hope that this article will show that we as people should be united as one and not divided,” Diggs writes. Being violated is something that many haven’t had a…

The health and social benefits of Obamacare are expected to be exponential for African Americans, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes at his Hutchinson Report News blog. So efforts by House Republicans to block implementation of the law for a year are emblematic of the party’s extensive race problems. Studies have found that when blacks do receive…

In an odd and embarrassing moment, Arizona’s feisty Republican Gov. Jan Brewer struggled to pronounce “Tuskegee” during a ceremony to honor the legendary black fighter pilots, who were the focus of last year’s highly publicized Hollywood release, Red Tails. Talking Points Memo reports that Local Fox TV affiliate KSAZ caught Brewer’s embarrassing struggle with the…

A bakery in Queens, N.Y., reportedly has been hit with $25,000 in fines and penalties in a discrimination case.  ” ‘I can’t hire you because you’re black,’ ” Jamilah DaCosta, 25, said she was told when she applied for a job in October 2011 as a counter clerk at Framboise Patisserie in Middle Village, Queens,…

In an explicit rebuke of Miley Cyrus’ failed MTV Music Video Awards twerking performance, Amy Linden writes an evocative piece at Ebony about Amy Winehouse. The late pop star, Linden says, was more intuitively tuned into black soul than any other white pop artist to arrive in her wake, which is why she didn’t resort…