culture

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…

Writing at the Huffington Post, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) chides the Republican-led House of Representatives for putting partisan politics above people’s right to survive after members passed a bill to eliminate basic food aid for 4 million struggling Americans, including 200,000 children. With millions of Americans out of work and millions more working for minimum…

Samhita Mukhopadhyay writes at the Nation that even though the racist reaction to the selection of Nina Davuluri, who is of South Asian descent, as Miss America has been shameful, the pageant itself is the real problem. During my Tuesday morning subway commute, I encountered a man who felt the need to stare at me…

(The Root) — “They need to stop, they need to stop,” Semecha Nunn told the Chicago Tribune after her 3-year-old grandson was shot late Thursday as neighbors played basketball at a park on Chicago’s South Side. Police are investigating the shooting, which left 13 people wounded after two men in a gray sedan reportedly pulled…

(The Root) — “My cousin on my mom’s side of the family has done extensive research on our family background. From what she has obtained thus far, it appears as if my mom’s family are descendants of Gen. Braxton Bragg (Fort Bragg is named after him). There have been a few challenges trying to see…