culture
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19 Things Every HBCU Grad Knows
(The Root) — We often either romanticize HBCUs or disparage them. But as all graduates of historically black schools know, the truth lies somewhere in between. If you want to see what’s hot on black Twitter, check out The Chatterati.Akoto Ofori-Atta is the editor of The Grapevine. Like her Facebook page and follow her on…
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IRS Scandal Is News, but Tax-Exempt Status Was Never Politically Neutral
In a piece for Colorlines, Brentin Mock places the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups in historical context. It’s interesting to note how non-profits became forbidden from political campaign activity to begin with. For that, look back to Lyndon B. Johnson, the U.S. President who helped usher in the Voting Rights Act and…
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Shots Not Heard Round the World in NOLA
(The Root) — On Mother’s Day, someone decided to shoot into a crowd of parading New Orleanians, injuring 19 people. Video footage of the event indicates that I was just feet away from the shooter. My family and friends think I should stop going to second-line parades or into “bad neighborhoods” (read: black neighborhoods, of…
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The World's Most and Least Racist Countries
We’d say that answering “people of a different race” to a question about the type of people you would not want as neighbors is a good-enough measure of intolerance. And that’s the World Values Survey question the Washington Post‘s Max Fischer used to create a color-coded global map of racial attitudes across the globe. Check…
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Charles Ramsey Tattoo and Action Figure
Looks like Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man made famous for rescuing three kidnapped women, will be remembered through more than just news interviews and their resulting memes. Apparently at least one person has memorialized him with a tattoo (wow, we wouldn’t even expect the people he saved from a life of captivity to do that).…
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Teen Won't Be Charged for Science Experiment Gone Bad
When 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot was arrested for causing a small explosion on the campus of her Florida high school in what some called a “science experiment gone bad,” the possible felony charges and up to five years in prison that she faced became a national story. Now, after a crowdfunded legal defense fund raised more…
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Explaining That Race Is a Social Construct — Again
The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates responds to recent writing on race and intelligence by reminding us exactly what race is and what it isn’t. … The strongest argument for “race” is that people who trace their ancestry back to Europe, and people who trace most of their ancestry back to sub-Saharan Africa, and people who trace…
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Should I Only Date Men at My Income Level?
(The Root) — “Is it wrong to seek out guys who are at my level, career- and salarywise, and have the same goals? I have tried dating guys who weren’t, but their insecurities popped up, and it became frustrating telling them that those things don’t matter. I’m wondering if I should save myself the hassle!”…
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Bill Maher Responds to White Guys. Why Not to Wayne Brady?
Morris W. O’Kelly writes at the Huffington Post that the talk-show host only picks fights that he thinks he can win. But with Wayne Brady, he lost badly. It’s about time Bill Maher responded to Wayne Brady. Not because he owes Brady any sort of explanation or apology for his previous jokes about Brady supposedly…
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Ask Jenée Desmond-Harris Anything
(The Root) — Hi, I’m Jenée Desmond-Harris, The Root’s staff writer and Race Manners advice columnist. I’ve been writing about the intersection of race with politics, culture and identity (and sometimes just stuff black people do) for The Root for a couple of years. So I split my time pretty evenly between being outraged and laughing…