culture
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A Latina 'Comes Out' as Black
Elaine Vilorio, a high school senior who is originally from the Dominican Republic, recently wrote a Huffington Post piece titled “Coming Out as Black.” It’s not as if it was a big secret that she had African ancestry. Rather, Vilorio says, she simply wasn’t raised in a way that encouraged focusing on it. When she…
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My Ex Wants to Borrow a Large Sum of Money
(The Root) — “I watch Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, and I saw the episode where there’s a girl whose baby daddy wanted to borrow money. On Twitter, people said she was stupid for giving him money to open a store. My daughter’s father has asked to borrow some money, and now I am thinking…
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Why Was a Video Featuring an Interracial Couple Filmed at Howard?
Writer Jamilah Lemieux is still sorting out her feelings about why a music video featuring the love story of a white girl and black guy gave her pause. The video is filmed at her alma mater, Howard University, which would seem appropriate, given that the singer and lead actress, Jillian Parker, a white girl, is…
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Another Take on NPR's 'Black Men Want a Relationship' Findings
Clutch magazine’s Danielle C. Belton digs a bit deeper into the results of a recent NPR survey indicating that black men are more interested than black women in getting into a committed relationship. First of all, 18 to 49 is a really large swath of people. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a…
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Deval Patrick Got 'Drunk' After Tsarnaev's Arrest
Sometimes people celebrate and de-stress with alcohol. Sometimes they can get a little … inebriated. We probably don’t imagine our politicians doing that, but most of them don’t go through what Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick went through in April, when the entire city of Boston went on lockdown as authorities searched for marathon-bombing suspect Dzhokar…
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Bet You Don't Know What Drowning Looks Like
According to a Slate piece that’s making the rounds this week, you probably don’t know what drowning looks like. Why? Well, because when it actually happens, it doesn’t resemble what just about anyone would think of as drowning. “There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind,”…
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Trayvon's Mom: I Will Have to Forgive Zimmerman
In an interview with the New York Times‘ Charles M. Blow that led the columnist to characterize her as “a tower of grace and a well of good will, a woman who misses her son desperately and is trying to make the best of an awful situation, the kind who perseveres through faith and is…
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Blacks and Hispanics 'Predisposed' to Crime: Really, Judge?
Edith Jones, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Texas, is the target of an ethics complaint by civil rights groups who claim that she said in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that “racial groups like African Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime,” MSNBC…
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Could Stop and Frisk Become Permanent?
(The Root) — While stop and frisk, the controversial practice of the New York City Police Department that has been proved to disproportionately target young black and Latino males, faces a serious court challenge, a new state law may render a court ruling to end the practice moot. The New York Senate has passed a…
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Surprised About Black Twitter or Online Racism? You're Late
Noting the shock over racist reactions to the interracial Cheerios commercial, Ebony‘s Jamilah Lemieux says it seems as if “the Internet just met the Internet” in recent weeks. I’m not saying people shouldn’t take issue with the racist responses to what was a cute commercial for cereal; it’s certainly unfortunate that something so innocuous brings…