culture
-
Did a White Mother Lie About Black Teens Causing Son's Death?
Rolling Out is reporting that a forensic report may prove that a white Georgia woman, Sherry West, wrongly implicated two teens in the slaying of her son. De’Marquis Elkins, 17, and Dominique Lang, 15, were arrested and charged in the March death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. But their public defender, Jonathan Lockwood, uncovered some shocking evidence, the…
-
'Miscarriage of Justice': Judge Overturns Death Sentence
In a scathing 40-page opinion, a federal judge on Wednesday overturned a 1992 conviction of a Philadelphia man, James Dennis, who she said had been unjustly sentenced to die for a murder he probably did not commit, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Judge Anita B. Brody said city police and prosecutors ignored, lost, or “covered up”…
-
Watch This: Atlanta School Hero Recalls Ordeal
In an interview with ABC in Atlanta, Antoinette Tuff, a bookkeeper at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, near Decatur, Ga., recalled the harrowing ordeal on Aug. 20 during which she was held hostage by a 20-year-old man, Michael Brandon Hill. Hill entered the building during school hours with an AK-47. No one was injured.…
-
Let Coolio Cook: Buy His Music Catalog
It’s no secret that rapper Coolio (real name: Artis Leon Ivey Jr.) traded in his microphone for a spatula years ago. The performer behind some of the biggest hip-hop hits of the 1990s (“Fantastic Voyage,” “Gangsta’s Paradise”) had an online cooking show, Cookin’ With Coolio, and released a cookbook of the same name in 2009.…
-
December Retrial for Detroit Cop Who Shot 7-Year-Old
A judge on Wednesday set a Dec. 4 retrial date for the Detroit police officer accused in the death of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the Detroit Free Press reports. The date for Officer Joseph Weekley’s trial was set during a hearing Wednesday before Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway. Weekley, whose gun went off killing…
-
Actor Wentworth Miller Comes Out as Gay
Actor Wentworth Miller announced that he is gay, according to a letter written to officials at the St. Petersburg International Film Festival in Russia and obtained by BuzzFeed. He writes, “I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government.” He went on: The situation is…
-
NBA Star Allen Iverson to Officially Retire
Casual basketball fans might have already thought that Allen Iverson stepped away from basketball and that they just missed the press conference. But Iverson, 38, never made his retirement official. Instead, reports over the years were always about him trying to get a spot on a roster both overseas and in the U.S. Only now,…
-
MLK's 'Dream': How the Speech Became Popular
(The Root) — Was the Martin Luther King Jr. speech we now know as “I Have a Dream” masterfully composed and delivered? Of course it was. Was the moment in August 1963 when it was delivered historic? Absolutely. But does any of that explain why the “dream”— King’s well-known vision of black children and white…
-
My Lady Has Issues With My Biracial Son
(The Root) — “I’ve been dating a lady for a while, so I figured it was time for her to meet my son, who is biracial. She was very nice to him. However, on the way home, she said she was surprised that as a white guy I’d had a child with a black woman.…
-
The Rampant Sexism at March on Washington
(The Root) — The March on Washington is considered one of the greatest gatherings for equal rights in human history. Yet while the crowd congregated to push for the equality of black Americans and workers’ rights, female participants in the march, and the civil rights movement as a whole, struggled for equal treatment, acknowledgment and…