culture

(The Root) — Keith Clinkscales, a former ESPN executive, has been tapped to lead Revolt TV. Sean “Diddy” Combs named Clinkscales chief executive officer of his music-oriented channel, Revolt TV, according to a news release. Combs also announced that industry veteran Andy Schuon will serve as president, and Val Boreland as executive vice president of programming…

(The Root) — When Jay Z performed “Picasso Baby” in a swanky New York City art gallery last month, he looked polished in a crisp white button-up, and he wore one of hip-hop’s most iconic symbols: a gold chain. Just one week prior, exhibits ranging in price from $10,000 to half-a-million dollars filled the same…

(The Root) — Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper’s recent apology for using the n-word during a confrontation with a black security guard at a country music concert last month exemplifies the power of a word rooted in racial slavery, Jim Crow segregation and racism. Cooper, a Kenny Chesney fan, presumably did not learn this…

(The Root) — “I just don’t think I’m ready,” explained a friend as we discussed possible plans to go see Fruitvale Station, the critically acclaimed film that depicts the final 24 hours of 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s life. On New Year’s Day 2009, the unarmed and handcuffed Grant was shot and killed by a transit-police officer…

In a cogent piece at the New York Times, Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. explores racial disparities in how the death penalty is meted out. He examines the case of Duane Buck, who is facing execution in Houston’s Harris County. His sentence is the clear result of racial discrimination, Ogletree says. Nearly 50…

Don’t be fooled because Michelle Obama is conspicuously missing from Vanity Fair’s 2013 International Best-Dressed List, says the Daily Beast‘s Isabel Wilkinson. The first lady can still outswagger most when it comes to fashion. One reason for the omission, Wilkinson writes, is that the first lady has been taking fewer fashion risks than she did…

Rinku Sen, president and executive director of the Applied Research Center and publisher of Colorlines, writes an incisive piece that tackles racism and bigotry at their most visceral levels in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The nation’s legal frameworks are based on punishing explicit racism, not “implicit…

Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh is engaging in more crazy talk. During an appearance Tuesday on Fox News’ On the Record With Greta Van Susteren, he attributed Detroit’s decline to the city’s first black mayor, Coleman Young, according to Think Progress. He accused Young of starting riots in 1967, which forced whites to flee to…

(The Root) — Hip-hop mogul Shawn Carter, aka Jay Z, and legendary singer and human-rights activist Harry Belafonte have been recently embroiled in a highly publicized dispute over the responsibilities of black icons to the larger African-American community. Belafonte, who has effortlessly wedded a successful international career as a singer, dancer and actor with vocal…

In light of rising racial tensions in America, the Los Angeles Police Department has announced that it is implementing a three-year, voluntary racial-mediation program. The plan calls for officers and citizens to talk out their differences — face-to-face. According to the Huffington Post, the Community-Employee Mediation Pilot Program is a chance for both “officers and accusers…