culture

Police authorities in Arkansas are investigating circumstances surrounding the death of Monroe Isadore, 107, who was shot on Saturday in Pine Bluff, Ark., the Associated Press reports. He reportedly fired at police during a confrontation and was shot and killed by an officer. Authorities have said they tried using a camera, negotiating tactics and gas before shooting…

The gap between the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of America is the biggest it’s been since the Roaring ’20s, the Washington Post reports. The very wealthiest Americans earned more than 19 percent of the country’s household income last year — their biggest share since 1928, the year before the stock market crash. And…

(The Root) — The Harriet Tubman role was the last straw. After recurring guest spots spanning slavery to the civil rights movement, actress Azie Dungey was over the days of old. “The future just seemed like more history,” said Dungey. When a friend forming a historical actors’ troupe asked Dungey, who’d just finished playing a…

Bill de Blasio is the early front-runner, garnering nearly 40 percent of the vote in the New York Democratic primary mayoral race, reports NY1. De Blasio, who is currently the city’s public advocate, made waves in the last few weeks, not only with his liberal take on issues like ending stop and frisk but also with…

Ramou Sarr went through a long process of ridding herself of thoughts that she was ugly and inferior as an African-American girl, especially growing up in predominantly white environments. At Black Girls Talking, Sarr describes how she once yearned for blond hair. The ways in which my self-hatred manifested itself slowly changed, however. It became…

“Brandy’s little sister lame man he know it now/When a real brother hold you down, you supposed to drown.”  Those were the opening lyrics that Kanye West rapped Monday on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. West was performing “Bound 2,” featured on his latest album, Yeezus. On the recorded version, however, no such lyric appears. According…

Whispers about Andre 3000 playing Jimi Hendrix in a movie have been buzzing for a while now, but a New York Times article about the complicated history and re-emergence of the biopic genre brings the rapper’s star turn as the legendary guitar genius front and center. Andre — billed as André Benjamin — plays the…

On Tuesday Mark O’Mara, the lead defense attorney in the George Zimmerman second-degree-murder trial, told CNN that he would not be representing Zimmerman in any legal proceedings involving estranged wife Shellie Zimmerman, who filed for divorce last week. “I am not representing George Zimmerman in his recent domestic altercation case or his impending divorce case,”…

Last week the story of 7-year-old Tiana Parker sparked a national outrage. Tiana was sent home from Deborah Brown Community School because her dreadlocks didn’t fit the dress code, which stated that “hairstyles such as dreadlocks, afros, mohawks, and other faddish styles are unacceptable.” The negative publicity — including a petition that received more than…