culture
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Will and Jaden Smith's Interview About Everything
In an interview with Vulture pegged to their postapocalyptic drama After Earth, Will and Jaden Smith touch on everything from seeing patterns in life (Will says he’s a student of them, and Jayden seems to be, too) to who’s the biggest star in the family (Willow) to lessons learned about “the intricacies of global finance.”…
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Charges Filed in Infant Shooting Death
Police filed charges on Monday in connection with the March shooting death of 6-month-old Jonylah Watkins, who was killed while sitting on her father’s lap in a minivan on Chicago’s South Side. THe Huffington Post reports that 33-year-old Koman Willis was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. He reportedly turned himself…
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This Christian Couple Says a Sexless Marriage Is Holier
‘What is the point of marriage if you’re not having sex with your spouse? In a piece at BlackAmericaWeb, Michael H. Cottman ponders a couple’s commitment to abstinence after wedlock. I thought the reasoning for marriage, in part, was to spend quality time with your soul mate, which also includes monogamous sexual intimacy. But Jon and…
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Where's Black Outrage for Mark Carson?
(The Root) — When James Byrd, a black man, was dragged to his death in Texas in 1998 by a group of men later identified as having white-supremacist tendencies, African Americans were outraged. Most Americans were. That same year, another horrifying hate crime captured the attention of the nation, when gay student Matthew Shepard was…
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Veterans Deserve Better on Memorial Day
In his Washington Post column about Memorial Day, Colbert I. King reflects on what the country owes veterans, especially in light of the disrespect shown in Washington, D.C., to the recent observance of the Bureau of Colored Troops’ 150th anniversary. The observance of the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Bureau of Colored Troops…
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Right-Wing Reflex: Blame Obama First
In his column at the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page reprimands the GOP for pointing fingers at President Barack Obama in the IRS scandal, saying that they’re doing so because they don’t know who’s really to blame. … But the big question occupying Capitol Hill is, who is to blame? House Speaker John Boehner’s remarks on…
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Integration Plaintiff Gets High School Diploma 54 Years Late
More than half a century after she was a plaintiff in a lawsuit to integrate Virginia’s Charlottesville City Schools, 71-year-old Olivia Ferguson McQueen received her high school diploma on Saturday. The civil rights lawsuit was successful, the Huffington Post reports, but McQueen still spent her senior year sequestered from her peers and tutored in the…
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A Father's Undying Love on Memorial Day
As Stephen Rusiniak stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., he saw a man in a wheelchair running his fingers over a name. In the New Jersey Record, Rusiniak writes that watching the man remember his son made him cry a bit himself. He dabbed the tears that were running down his cheeks…
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How Muslims Should Respond to Terror
When two men hacked a British soldier to death on a London street last week, one declared that he’d acted in the name of Islam. CNN host Fareed Zakaria writes that when such violent acts occur, Muslims must say, loud and clear, that they do not condone the incidents. I understand the feeling that some…
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Racing Pioneer: 'I Don't Let These Guys Punk Me'
(The Root) — In March, professional race-car driver Nicole Lyons became the first African-American woman to finish a NASCAR Whelen Series race. “Most people don’t even know that,” she said at the NAACP’s Leadership 500 Summit in Naples, Fla., on Friday. “But I bet we all know about Danica Patrick.” Lyons, who got her start…