culture

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…

In the Las Vegas Sun, Clarence Page debunks the Republican Party’s perception that blacks are the primary recipients of food stamps, saying, “a California surfer dude has become the new ‘welfare queen.’ ” Republicans who voted last week to cut food stamp benefits represent most of the counties that experienced the largest growth in food…

In the New York Times, Charles M. Blow equates the Republican Party’s efforts to stall President Obama’s economic progress to Herman Melville’s iconic revenge-seeking Captain Ahab, who engaged in a failed pursuit to slay Moby Dick, a great white whale. “America’s national interests are subordinate to their selfish ones,” he writes. The House Republican caucus is…

The beats were bumping and the rhymes flowing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon the other night when the host featured a hip-hop version of the Sesame Street theme song. Jimmy Fallon and The Roots were joined by Sesame Street characters Thursday to celebrate the children’s show’s 44th season by playing its theme song on…

Finally, in a bit of good news for Detroit, the Obama administration announced plans Friday to provide the beleaguered city with $100 million in federal funds to help hire more police, firefighters and workers to improve blighted areas, according to the Associated Press. The total economic recovery package is about $300 million, which includes $200…