culture
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The NBA Finals' Most Annoying Viewers
Before Thursday night’s big game, Very Smart Brothas’ Damon Young offered some very direct words of advice to basketball novices, including must-know facts and essential etiquette. … 1. Shut the f*ck up There’s nothing wrong with being an NBA novice. Basketball isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so it’s perfectly understandable if you just don’t happen…
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Reports: Rapper Lil Snupe Dead
Multiple sources are reporting that 18-year-old rapper Lil Snupe of Meek Mill’s Dream Chasers Records has died after being shot earlier this week. A writer for AllHipHop.com wrote this morning, “Now, I am hearing that he has been found dead. I don’t have a lot of details, but I heard he was shot by some…
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911 Call Allowed in Zimmerman Trial
Saturday, June 22, 12:13 p.m. EDT: On Saturday morning, Judge Debra Nelson ruled that while the audiotape of the 911 call can be played during the upcoming trial, which begins on Monday, the findings of audio will not be admissable. CBS News reports that this decision will likely shorten the proceedings by one week. Thursday, June 20,…
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Pelosi Blasts Proposed $20.5 Billion Food Stamp Cuts
On Wednesday the House of Representatives killed an amendment by Rep. James McGovern that would have eliminated planned food stamp cuts in the GOP’s five-year farm bill, replacing the cuts with reductions to big agriculture subsidies. The bill currently includes $20.5 billion in food stamp cuts over the next 10 years (a number that could…
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Diddy: Ready to Revolutionize TV
(The Root) — There must be something in the water, because major figures in hip-hop are revolutionizing the way we consume media — during Black Music Month, no less. On the heels of Jay-Z’s partnership with Samsung to release his new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, to 1 million users three days before the actual…
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Studies: Can Racism Shorten Life?
It’s fair to say that Paula Deen’s unapologetic racism has gotten her Twitter-murdered in the most hilarious way possible. Thanks to #PaulasBestDishes and today’s #PaulaWon’tCookIt hastags, anyone’s image of her as a butter-loving grandmother figure is officially deep-fried and dead. But of course, when it comes to bigotry, it’s not just the perpetrators who suffer.…
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Communism Didn't End Racism in Cuba
Afro-Cuban activists Calvo Cárdenas and Manuel Cuesta Morúa created the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR) to advocate for Cuba’s underrepresented Afro-Cuban population. CIR champions policies to fight discrimination that Afro-Cubans experience in the workforce. The group’s work gives Cuba’s Communist Party pause because it refutes the idea that 50 years of communism has eliminated…
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The Problem With 'the Black Whatever'
Alisha Tillery speaks out against the tendency to compare black people to white icons in a piece for Clutch magazine. She says that it gives the impression we aren’t satisfied being ourselves and that we look to white people for the standard of what’s good. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a story…
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Absent Dads Make Girls Into Sluts? Come On
At xoJane, Helena Andrews, a contributing editor at The Root, rejects the idea that an absent father makes for a promiscuous daughter. She disagrees with a Texas Christian University study that came to that controversial conclusion. Obviously the study and research and so forth are all sort of bogus, as most of the smart women who analyzed…
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Ode to the Black Tiger Mother
The Root Contributing Editor Farai Chideya, in a piece for the Huffington Post, calls single black mothers Tiger Moms and applauds them for overcoming challenges to raise strong black men and women . I’m not a great satirist, and what my family achieved is too serious to get that tonality wrong. My father and mother split…