culture

In light of Monday’s Supreme Court decision, ProPublica‘s Nikole Hannah-Jones examines what some people think could be a more acceptable way of ensuring diversity on America’s campuses: affirmative action based on class.  The latest chapter in this national struggle was supposed to come with the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of an affirmative action case involving…

A 33-year-old man was arrested on Saturday in New Jersey after he reportedly left a Toby Keith concert, climbed over a fence into a nearby housing complex and began waving a Confederate flag and shouting racial slurs at residents, according to the Associated Press. [Thirty-three]-year-old Darren Walp of Ridley Park, Pa., was arrested in Camden…

A peaceful Mississippi church sanctuary turned chaotic on Sunday morning after police fatally shot the son of the deacon, the Associated Press reports. The police were called to break up a fight that began when members argued over the firing of the pastor. Cacedrick White, 26, arrived with a shotgun and fired it once in…

(The Root) — I once wrote of the comparisons between tennis legend Arthur Ashe, known for his grace and quiet temperament on and off of the court, and President Obama, who, like Ashe, has been criticized for not being emotional or angry enough at times. What I didn’t write then is that part of why…

Conventional wisdom says that black people who are married have more children, but Atlantic editor Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that statistics show the opposite. There is nothing “immoral” or “pathological” about deciding not to marry. In the glorious black past, women who made that decision were more — not less — likely to become mothers. People…

News of Nelson Mandela’s failing health has pointed a spotlight at the next generation of South Africans, writes Bolanle Omisore at Ebony, and they are not as politically involved as their forefathers. “I came back to South African in 1994, before Mandela’s election, and it was the beginning of liberalization,” says Mandlesizwe L. Isaacs, an…

Sparse rock chords, medium-sized rhymes and women as objects is how Yeezus sounds to Kris Ex, who reviewed Kanye West’s latest album in L.A. Weekly. He also notes West’s misogynist lyrics, despite becoming father to a baby girl, North West, with girlfriend Kim Kardashian, last weekend. The album is short, clocking in at 40 minutes,…

Join us here or on Twitter for a live discussion of the opening statements in the second-degree-murder trial of George Zimmerman, who is accused of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Use the hashtag #GZtrial to weigh in with your tweets. Columbus Ohio News, Weather Tweets about “#GZtrial” !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+”://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”); Corey Dade, an award-winning journalist based in…