culture

(The Root) — For as long as Africans in America have been producing music for the recording industry, there’s remained a tension between black performance styles and the mainstream society that benefits. This hasn’t always been a bad thing. There are times when the use of black style and form has moved pop culture to…

(The Root) — Once praised only for their athleticism and running ability, black NFL quarterbacks today are bucking a system that has stereotyped them since the beginning of the National Football League. The new crop of black NFL quarterbacks are eager to show everyone that they can torch opponents with their feet but just as…

(The Root) — Tamron Hall is already considered one of the best-dressed women in the news biz, according to Vanity Fair magazine, and now she is officially one of the busiest. Already an anchor for MSNBC’s NewsNation With Tamron Hall, she is also a regular substitute anchor for NBC’s Today show. As if two jobs…

At the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb delivers trenchant criticism of President Barack Obama’s leadership. Responding to his remarks on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Cobb asks, “Has a black presidency moved us closer to the ideal of King’s dream, or reflected its exhaustion as a real possibility?” Four years have passed [since…

Recent Hampton University graduate Nicole Breeden was shocked that her $100,000 degree didn’t come with a cheat sheet to instant success or a black credit card, she writes at Clutch magazine. She castigates the hip-hop industry for encouraging hopes of achieving extraordinary wealth that most people will never obtain. The fantasy, she says, promotes cynicism…

Colorlines‘ Imara Jones admonishes the president for blaming people of color for persistent economic inequality during his speech for the March on Washington’s 50th anniversary. He said that Obama’s talk was long on rhetoric and short on substance. On the very site of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the nation’s first black…

The Daily News is reporting that Carson Huey-You, who just started his freshman year at Texas Christian University, is the youngest person ever to attend the private university in Fort Worth. He was in high school at the age of 5. Today he is 11 years old and taking a full college load, including physics, calculus,…

(The Root) — At least on ceremony, the elders fumbled the passing of the civil rights torch to a new generation as two emergent young leaders were bumped from Wednesday’s program at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Phil Agnew, of Dream Defenders, and Sofia Campos, of United We Dream, separately were cut…

It wasn’t a dis, but it was definitely a challenge. During Jamie Foxx’s speech at the commemoration of the March on Washington’s 50th anniversary, the star referred to an encounter he had with Harry Belafonte, reports My Cocoa Fab. In his 3 minute speech, the actor, wearing a suit that reminds us of his Django premier…

As he prepares to run for the U.S. Senate, Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker is having to answer questions about his sexuality, and according to Gawker, he isn’t doing a very good job. Presumably because he has mostly remained unattached throughout his time as mayor, with no publicly known wife prospects, whispers of Booker’s sexuality…