culture
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Why Hiding a Jury Won't Help Zimmerman Trial
In a piece for Slate, Emily Bazelon explains why sequestering a jury, especially in such a high-profile case, does not work. She bases her argument on Supreme Court rulings and suggests that allowing jurors to live at home and read what they want won’t affect their final decision. In fact, it will help them be…
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Not Everyone Can Go Natural
Teronda Seymore explains in Clutch magazine why her idea to go natural backfired horribly. By being afraid of “the big chop” and not cutting off her relaxer before transitioning, she ruined what was supposed to be a personal journey — and her tresses. It craved that creamy crack. I was relieved to find some under…
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N-Word, Rap and Black Friends: Awkward?
(The Root) — “I’m a 34-year-old white male. Me and most of the guys I work with and play in a basketball league with listen to the same music: hip-hop (old and new) and rap. Of course some songs have the n-word in them. I’m one of the only nonblack guys in the group, which…
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Trayvon Martin: On Trial?
It will be Trayvon Martin who will be judged in the trial, writes Eric Mann in ColorLines, not his murderer. Mann compares Trayvon’s character assassination to his own experience with anti-police-brutality campaigns during the 1960s. When I worked in the Newark Community Union Project in 1966-1968 in the city’s black south and central wards, we…
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50 Years After George Wallace's Stand
(The Root) — Fifteen years after Vivian Malone and James Hood successfully enrolled at the University of Alabama, I had my first day of classes in August of 1978 at the “Capstone of Higher Education” — the state’s flagship. On June 11, 1963, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, an iconic segregationist, stood in the door…
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Medgar Evers' Life and Legacy: 10 Facts
(The Root) — On June 12, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council, shot 37-year-old NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers in the back outside his Jackson, Miss., home, killing him — and making a legend out of a man who was already a courageous soldier in the fight for civil…
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Biracial Cheerios-Ad Star Thought Attention Was for Her Great Smile
(The Root) — Last week a Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family generated such a strong racist reaction on YouTube that the comments section had to be closed. The video had received more than 1,600 likes and more than 500 dislikes, as well as references to Nazis, “troglodytes” and “racial genocide.” Of course, that reaction…
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How 1 Black Doctor Compensates for Racism
Dr. Gregory McGriff’s contribution to NPR’s Race Card Project, which asks listeners to send in their six-word summaries of their experience with race and cultural identity, was “55 mph means you black man.” His explanation: “I am an Ivy League graduate and a board-certified medical doctor. The subject of race comes up all the time, but…
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Support for Affirmative Action Dropping? Or Just White Support?
As the country awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the University of Texas’ consideration of race (among other admissions factors) to ensure a diverse student body, NBC reported on Tuesday on the results of a poll whose results show that a “record low number of Americans support such programs.” Just 45 percent…
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For-Profit Colleges: Preying on Black Ambition?
In a Salon piece, Kai Wright explains why we all need to take a look at the economic structures that are causing degree-seeking students to take on a boatload of student-loan debt. He argues that the wealth for-profit universities are amassing at the expense of black Americans is akin to the subprime-mortgage fiasco that engulfed the nation’s economy…