culture
-
Minority Kids With Autism Don't Receive Proper Care
Black and Latino children with autism and other disorders don’t have the same access to specialists and care as white children with the same diseases, a recent study in the journal Pediatrics suggests. According to CNN, minority children with autism are often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed as early as white children. Specifically, African-American children aren’t diagnosed until roughly…
-
Why Your Silence When Arrested Can Be Used Against You
On Monday, in a 5-4 ruling in Salinas v. Texas, the conservative members of the Supreme Court, along with Justice Anthony Kennedy, decided that if you’re arrested and remain silent before police read you your Miranda rights, that silence can and will be held against you. The Atlantic explains what that means, and why it’s…
-
Teacher to Students: No Experience Is Just 'for White Girls'
A teacher at Public School 28 in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where an estimated 80 percent of children qualify for free lunch, overheard a student dismiss Manhattan’s expensive American Girl doll store as an unattainable destination — specifically, “a place that white girls go to.” A $14,000 fundraising campaign later, he took 27 girls on…
-
You're Grown. Why Can I See Your Underwear?
Writer Jamilah Lemieux would prefer not to see your pants sagging off your behind. Writing at Clutch magazine, Lemieux complains about grown men who do not seem to have wardrobes that correspond with their age. There’s no universal standard of style that all men or women can be held to, nor do I advocate for…
-
Bill Cosby's Argument Needs Tweaking
Shaun Ossei-Owusu at the Huffington Post parses Bill Cosby’s tough love toward the black community and finds areas of his argument that need improvement. Ossei-Owusu urges Cosby and others to distinguish between structural racism (prison industrial complex, underfunded public school schools, etc.) and the “cultural explanations” of inequality. Critics are right when they point…
-
Black and Brown Folks: The Government Is Watching
Imara Jones wants black and Latino people to pay close attention to reports about the government’s surveillance activities as of late. Writing at Colorlines, Jones describes a program called Prism that targets social media, which is used disproportionately by people of color. But particularly troubling for people of color is the program called Prism. With…
-
Educated Black Women Do Find Husbands
(The Root) — Early last week I breathed a sigh of relief when I stumbled across several black sites offering commentary on the findings of a report from the United Negro College Fund stating that black women were enrolling in college in record numbers — more so, in fact, than any other race, ethnic group…
-
Da Vinci's Patron — as a Black Man?
(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. The art of the Italian Renaissance embraced a wondrously varied range of imagery and subjects. One of the most…
-
Meet Brooklyn's Preteen Rock Stars
They’re in middle school. They’re budding rock stars. They’re black musicians in a generally pretty white genre. They’re incredibly self-possessed. Questlove has noticed them (and tweeted about it). And, as Buzzfeed put it in a post on their metal band, Unlocking the Truth, Jarad Dawkins, 11, and Malcolm Brickhouse, 12, of Brooklyn, N.Y., are “cooler…
-
Jurnee Smollett-Bell Makes Vampire Debut
Actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell jumped into action when she found out she was being considered for a role on the hit HBO series True Blood. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Smollett-Bell said that she and her husband shot an impromptu audition video in her in-laws’ basement to convince producers that she had what it takes…