culture
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Just How White Was New York Fashion Week?
Last week, black supermodel Jessica White wondered aloud where all the black supermodels were. Black modeling icon Bethann Hardison continues to do her part during New York Fashion Week in creating awareness around the runway’s lack of diversity during the fashion and modeling industry’s biggest week, alongside fellow legends Iman and Naomi Campbell. The call…
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NYC Judge: No Delay in Halting Stop and Frisk
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin refused to delay the enactment of a ruling that will stop New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies, according to Newsday. The city had requested the stay, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration and the New York City Police Department saying that the ruling will “compromise public safety” and interfere with law enforcement. Scheindlin upheld…
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911 Call Released in Fatal NC Cop Shooting of Unarmed Black Man
A search for help after a car wreck early Saturday morning in North Carolina turned into a fatal journey for Jonathan Ferrell, a former Florida A&M University football player. At about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, he banged on the front door of Sarah McCartney, who was alone with her 1-year-old son, MSNBC reports. She rushed…
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How 'The Butler' Grossed $100 Million
(The Root) — Lee Daniels’ The Butler, about a black White House butler named Cecil Gaines who serves under eight U.S. presidents before, during and after the civil rights movement, doesn’t have the trappings of a $100 million grossing film. But lo and behold, in a little more than a month after its domestic release,…
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Most Children of Color Live in Poverty
America’s children continued to be hardest hit by poverty in 2012, according to new Census Bureau statistics, the Washington Post reports. An estimated 21.8 percent of American children under the age of 18 lived in poverty in 2012, according to Census Bureau statistics (pdf) released Tuesday, the Post reports. That percentage, the same as in…
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Jeffrey Wright Explores a 'Virtuous Villain'
(The Root) — “One looks down in secret and sees many things,” Dr. Valentin Narcisse, played by Jeffrey Wright, says during the second episode of HBO’s crime drama Boardwalk Empire. Talking to his soon-to-be rival Chalky White, another African-American gangster in 1920s Atlantic City, he adds: “You know what I saw? A servant trying to…
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What Rushing a White Sorority Taught Me
(The Root) — I had just gotten in from cheerleading practice when I got the call. On the other end, a chipper girl I’d met for the first time the night before gave me the good news: The sisters of Delta Gamma wanted me to be one of them. I’d made it past the first…
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Can a Racist Grandpa Raise a Biracial Kid?
( The Root ) — “My dad has recently become much more conservative. He now says things like, Obama isn’t American, he is a Muslim, he hates whites, he might be the anti-Christ, he is unfit as president, he is a buffoon, etc. Outside of Obama, he complains about how welfare is being taken advantage of by…
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Adoption of Black Children by Overseas Families on the Rise
The number of African-American children adopted by foreign parents who live outside the United States is steadily rising, according to a CNN report. For some birth mothers, part of the appeal is that their child will get the opportunity to grow up in an exotic overseas location. And for others, there is the perception that…
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The Lone Gunman of Navy Yard Shooting
UPDATED Tuesday, Sept. 17, 10:17 a.m. EDT: According to the New York Times, Aaron Alexis, a black 34-year-old former Navy reservist, was the lone gunman who killed at least 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday. Law-enforcement officials are trying to piece together what motivated Alexis, now dead. Navy…