culture

  • Are Boomerang Kids Ruining Your Retirement?

    In a piece at Black Enterprise, Sheryl Nance-Nash says it’s important for parents and families to protect their finances from children returning to the nest, especially in today’s economy. She outlines several guidelines for survival. They’re baaaack. Not evil spirits, but your children. In a recent Pew Research survey, 39 percent of all adults ages…

  • Why Won't Conservatives Stop Fighting Obamacare?

    Congressional Republican leaders have finally acquiesced in their fight against President Barack Obama’s health care reform and have even developed a plan of their own that essentially acknowledges they’re powerless to kill it, Jamelle Bouie writes at the Daily Beast. But their conservative Tea Party cohorts continue to rally tirelessly and ineffectively to defund it.…

  • War in Syria: Why It Is a Bad Idea

    Dr. Boyce Watkins at Your Black World says it’s hypocritical for the U.S. to employ a military strike against Syria. Instead of going to war with Syria, he urges President Barack Obama to reconsider his foreign policy and shift his focus to domestic affairs. But after thinking about the situation long and hard, I’ve concluded…

  • Care for a Glass of Mandela's Wine?

    While Nelson Mandela is recovering after a lengthy hospital stay in South Africa, his daughter Makaziwe Mandela and granddaughter Tukwini Mandela will be toasting him this weekend thousands of miles away at the two-day Toast of Brooklyn Wine and Food Festival in New York City. But they won’t have to raise just any old glass…

  • Jessica White: Where Are the Black Models?

    African-American supermodel Jessica White is used to sticking out wherever she goes. She is a model, after all, who has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition and walks the runways for some of the world’s top designers. She is also one of a select few black women in her position, and in…

  • De Blasio Finishes 1st in NYC Mayoral Primary

    The Washington Post is reporting that with 97 percent of precincts recorded in Tuesday’s Democratic primary race for New York City mayor, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio captured about 40.2 percent of the total vote, which puts him slightly above the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid triggering a runoff on Oct. 1. The swirling, chaotic…

  • Arkansas Cop Investigated in Death of 107-Year-Old Black Man

    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…

  • Nation's Top 1 Percent Earn Biggest Slice Since 1920s

    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…

  • 'Ask a Slave': Come Down to the Plantation

    (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…

  • Will an HBCU Make My Kid Too Black?

    (The Root) — “My daughter is now entering her second year at a top historically black college. She has done well so far, but her father and I have realized that compared to the environment in which she grew up (we live in a mostly white area with some community members of different backgrounds and…