culture

Colorlines‘ Brentin Mock says a Justice Department agreement will decrease excessive suspensions and expulsions of mostly young black students for trivial infractions like wearing the wrong colored socks. The sealing of the school-to-prison pipeline in Meridian, Miss. has officially started after a U.S. District Court judge approved what the Department of Justice is calling “a…

Ka’Nard Allen will get to spend his 11th birthday living in the lap of luxury after being injured by gunfire at a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans, according to Reuters.  After hearing that Ka’Nard wanted to spend his birthday swimming in a hotel pool, Tod Chambers, general manager of the French Quarter’s historic Roosevelt New…

Did you ever have to wear a school uniform? The ill-constructed polo shirts, the extremely hot khaki pants … and who could forget the clunky shoes that seemed to make your feet weigh a ton? While this description might seem like a nightmare to some, to Minneapolis-based youth hip-hop groups Y.N. Rich Kids and the…

Remember Miguel’s onstage acrobatics gone wrong? At the Billboard Music Awards on May 20, the R&B singer jumped over the audience during his performance, accidentally kicking Khyati Shah in the head and throwing her onto the stage floor behind her. Though she and the singer seemed to be friendly and on good terms after the…

Lysa Terkeurst is a mother of three girls, but she made a decision that changed her life, her family and her community outside of Charlotte, N.C., the Huffington Post reports. Ten years ago, as she told the Today show, she went to see a choir made up of young boys from a Liberian orphanage. The…

Earlier this month, members of Congress sent a letter to the NFL’s Washington Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, to express their disapproval of the team’s name. In the same vein, CBS Sports columnist Mike Freeman has written a satire arguing that although there may not be a huge uproar over its racially loaded meaning, the name…

(The Root) — Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel, tap out and call it quits. Could it be that this entire time I’ve been lying to myself? That I am, in fact, one of Tyler Perry’s biggest fans and just didn’t know it? Nah. I still think the writer-director-producer makes a mockery of…

The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the implementation of the ACA and explains why the “lift all boats” policy often falls short. … I want to preface what I am about to say by pointing out the obvious — the ACA is a great thing. I suspect it will go down as the president’s greatest achievement…