culture
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Exec on Bad AIDS Drugs: 'Who Cares? It's Just Blacks Dying'
On May 13, India-based generic-drug manufacturer Ranbaxy Laboratories pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud, failing to report that its drugs didn’t meet specifications and making intentionally false statements to the U.S. government. In other words, it sold generic medications for everything from ear infections to AIDS that…
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Did Jay Harris Actually Choose Rap Over Football?
By now you’ve probably heard about Jay Harris, a top Philadelphia high school wide receiver who raised a lot of eyebrows, inspired some people by following his dreams and made others want to kick him when he told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he turned down an athletic scholarship to Michigan State University to pursue a…
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Obama Calls Staffer Shot While Caught in Crossfire
Gregory Jackson Jr., the Southern-region director for Organizing for Action — the post-election version of Obama for America — was caught in the crossfire of a violent argument outside Washington, D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center and shot in the calf on the early morning of April 21. Ironically, the Huffington Post points out, one…
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Details of Malcolm Shabazz's Death Revealed
Jozen Cummings is the author and creator of the popular relationship blog Until I Get Married, which is currently in development for a television series with Warner Bros. He also hosts a weekly podcast with WNYC about Empire called Empire Afterparty, is a contributor at VerySmartBrothas.com and works at Twitter as an editorial curator. Follow him on…
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AP, IRS, Benghazi: How Can Americans Trust Obama?
Conservative blogger Crystal Wright, writing at the Guardian, checks in on the various controversies swarming the Obama administration and determines that Republicans — and Americans in general, for that matter — only want answers. How can Republicans in Congress work with President Obama when they can’t trust him to be an honest broker or treat…
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Report: Evening Cable News Lacks Diversity
In a piece at ColorLines, Jorge Rivas delves into a newly released report that shows a stunning lack of diversity on evening cable news shows. He quotes a Latino leader who says this phenomenon gives the impression that minorities are not making positive contributions to the country. A new analysis released yesterday by the media…
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'White Girls Club' Is Neither Cool Nor Clever
(The Root) — We called ourselves “The Nubian Sisters,” Nubes for short. There were maybe seven of us, basically the entire eighth-grade population of black female students at my small private school. The “club” wasn’t much more than us hanging out by a particular bench during lunch, dressing for gym at the same time and…
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Why Walter Mosley Writes About Race
(The Root) — Though most recognized for his best-selling series of crime novels featuring black detective Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, Walter Mosley is a writer who wears many hats — both literally and figuratively. Hats — often fedoras — are one of his favorite accessories. He is rarely photographed without one. But he also wears several…
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Cleveland: It's No Longer Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
In light of the Cleveland kidnapping saga and the heroism of rescuer Charles Ramsey, Nikki Woods explores at BlackAmericaWeb.com how the concept of community, when everyone knew their neighbor, has been lost. The Cleveland hostage situation has sparked a lot of conversation about who’s actually living next door … and what you know about them.…
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Kicked Off Plane for Singing 'I Will Always Love You'
An American Airlines pilot was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger refused to stop singing “I Will Always Love You,” a Dolly Parton song made famous by the late Whitney Houston, the Daily Mail reports. The woman began singing shortly into the flight from Los Angeles to New York, and her crooning…