culture

The Washington Post is reporting that in an attempt to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is preparing to take legal action in a series of cases across the nation. The decision to challenge state officials marks an aggressive…

Contending that the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools violates children’s human rights, activists have sent a letter to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights asking investigators to look into the city’s decision, according to WBEZ. The “letter of allegation” sent Tuesday evening to Geneva, Switzerland, asks U.N. officials to investigate…

Salon is reporting that one of the nation’s largest long-term studies on the “crack baby” epidemic of the 1980s has found that there are “no statistically significant differences in the long-term health and life outcomes between full-term babies exposed to cocaine in-utero and those who were not.” Instead, researchers found poverty to be a key…

Still riding the wave of success from his directorial debut, Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler is in talks to direct the next installment in the famed Rocky franchise, according to Deadline. The film, currently entitled Creed, the first in the series since 2006, would reportedly reunite Coogler with actor Michael B. Jordan, who stars as Oscar Grant…

While addressing the inaugural hearing of the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys on Wednesday, Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s father, vowed not to give up fighting for his son and other “black and brown boys” in the country, MSNBC reports. “I vow to do everything in my power not to give up the fight…

Dana and Mark Gerstle, the couple rescued from their overturned Ford Explorer by George Zimmerman, have canceled a press conference. According to Gawker, the press conference was going to be hosted by Mark O’Mara, the lawyer who defended Zimmerman and successfully had him acquitted of charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the killing of…

(The Root) — For more than 20 years, Sheila Bridges has been a force in the design world. A graduate of Brown University and Parsons School of Design, she entered the arena of interior design at a time when many people’s budgets were ripe. Between those with new money who were ready to spend it…

(The Root) — It’s easy to get lost in the sea of staggeringly disturbing numbers coming out of Detroit. The best estimates put Detroit’s debt around $18 billion. There isn’t enough money in city coffers to run buses in many neighborhoods after 8 p.m., according to city financial reports. A full 40 percent of the…

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing at The Atlantic, tackles a post at the conservative magazine National Review that ridicules what’s known in the black community as “the talk,” regarding police profiling of African-American men. “One of the effects of racism is its tendency to justify stupidity,” Coates argues. National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson takes on the president’s…

During a segment of his show, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly erupted into a rant against the black community while discussing crime in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. “The civil rights industry will not take on the black crime problem because that would require…