culture

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…

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…