culture

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…

Trayvon Martin represents the story of African-American families across America, which is why it’s important not to forget his death, Chaedria LaBouvier writes at the Daily Kos.   Trayvon Martin on trial has been so deeply personal for me and my entire family in part because it is our story too. I thought about not…

Staceyann Chin writes poignantly at the Huffington Post about the joys, mishaps and struggles of being a single, lesbian working mother. Some days it feels like no one has ever been so tired or stressed. When you love your kid, and you wanted your kid, and you had so many people telling you that you…

A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll presents more evidence that Americans are deeply divided on issues of race and justice following the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the death of the unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, NBC News reports. The former neighborhood-watch captain’s lawyers argued that the shooting was not racially motivated. In the…

Cornel West continued his attack on the president in the wake of Obama’s speech after the George Zimmerman verdict. This time West went after MSNBC, calling the network a “rent-a-Negro” phenomenon, EURweb reports. The Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the president’s biggest proponents, is a host on the network. Well, West made a visit to…

After the television series The Game was canceled in 2009, a social media campaign began to bring the show back. That effort was successful, and The Game returned to television in 2011, with an astonishing 7.7 million viewers tuning in to the series premiere. Once again, success was due in part to the fan base’s…