culture

(The Root) — On Friday, there was music in the message at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 43rd annual legislative conference. During a panel entitled “Hip-Hop and Politics,” hosted by Radio One personality Amos Brown, the Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip-Hop Caucus, Global Grind’s Michael Skolnik, IMPACT’s Angela Rye, Public Enemy’s Hank Shocklee, MC…

(The Root) — In hip-hop, the DJ has always been heralded as the most important member of a rap group. For years, artists have written odes to their mix masters, whether it was Run-DMC showering Jam Master Jay with praise or Rakim proclaiming that “Eric B Is President.” But recently a group of Atlanta-based DJs…

In a piece at BlackAmericaWeb, Don Lemon takes lawmakers to task on gun violence in America in the aftermath of recent mass shootings. He says they must make significant changes to gun laws if things are going to change. Well, first let’s remove the politics and truthfully talk about gun laws, about gun violence.  After the Newtown…

“There is no glory in this,” the New York Times‘ Charles M. Blow writes in a strong reprimand to House Republicans who have threatened to “wreak havoc on the economy” in a last-ditch effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. “This is petty and small.” Delay and defund. And default. That is the…

The story of Jonathan Ferrell, who was shot dead by a North Carolina police officer as he sought help, highlights the deadly toll of racial stereotyping, Tressie McMillan Cottom writes in a piece at Slate. Last week, Jonathan Ferrell, a former Florida A&M football player who recently moved to the Charlotte, N.C., area to be…

Kerry Washington fans are on tenterhooks as they wait to find out Sunday if she will become the first black woman to win a primetime Emmy for lead actress in a drama series for her role on ABC’s Scandal. It was announced earlier this summer that Washington was nominated for her first Emmy for her…

More than 20 people, including children, are reportedly dead after militant gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, early Saturday, sending panicked shoppers running into the streets, Reuters reports, citing witnesses’ accounts and the Red Cross. Kenyan officials blamed the attack on the Somali militant group al Shabaab, saying members had threatened to strike…

Saying it lacks “literary value,” members of the Randolph County Board of Education in North Carolina voted Monday to ban Ralph Ellison’s award-winning 1952 novel Invisible Man from reading lists, according to UPI. The Randolph County Board of Education voted 5-2 to remove the book following a complaint from a parent. “This novel is not so innocent;…

Following a spate of bad publicity after the campus newspaper alleged racial discrimination in the University of Alabama pledging system, President Judy Bonner released a video statement late Friday announcing diversity in the school’s sororities, according to USA Today. Seventy-two bids – offers to allow a person to pledge – have been offered by the…

The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson says that President Barack Obama must be the strong disciplinarian in his dysfunctional congressional family because Republican leaders have failed to corral errant party members who think they can dismantle Obamacare, force a government shutdown and hold the debt ceiling hostage by throwing tantrums. Mature adults in the GOP should…