culture
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Kermit Gosnell Found Guilty
Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell has been convicted on three counts of first-degree murder for severing the spinal cords of infants born during abortions at his clinic, and one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, the Washington Post reports. Prosecutors described the clinic as a “house of horrors” because of…
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High School 'White Girls Club' Sent to Counseling
New Jersey’s Franklin Township’s Superintendent of Schools, Edward Q. Seto, has acknowledged that students participating in a “White Girls Club” at a local high school had the constitutional right to call themselves by any kind of name — even one “which most reasonable people would find offensive.” But an investigation into the group completed last…
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O.J. Back in Court to Ask for New Trial
Former football star O.J. Simpson, who’s serving nine to 33 years in prison for the armed robbery and kidnapping of two sports-memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room, is going back to court on Monday to ask for a new trial. Hoping to be granted an appeal of his 2008 conviction, Simpson, 65, will…
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19 Injured in New Orleans Shooting
NBC News is reporting that at least 19 people, including a 10-year-old boy and girl, were injured Sunday in a shooting at a New Orleans Mother’s Day parade: A 10-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl were grazed by bullets but were in good condition, New Orleans Police spokesman Garry Flot said in a statement. A woman…
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Malcolm Shabazz: A Life Cut Short
Jelani Cobb writes in the New Yorker that Malcolm Shabazz, who died last week in Mexico, was a young man still defining his place amid a looming legacy. The passage of time made the troubles of Malcolm X’s own youth appear as stations on some racial cross: the impoverished youth who became the heartless hustler,…
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Life Sentences Should Not Apply to Children
(Special to The Root) — Nearly a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court reminded us of something that we all know and understand: Age matters. Children are immature and irresponsible. They do not appreciate the risks and consequences of their behavior. Biologically, their brains are not yet fully developed. They can fall prey to peer…
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No 2nd-Class Families
Martin Luther King Jr. said that a threat to injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous agrees on the Huffington Post, where he writes that the struggles of immigrants and African Americans are parallel. So it is not difficult to empathize with the struggle of immigrants in our country.…
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Memory of My Absent Dad Pushed My Single Mother
Raised by her single mother, Sharda Sekaran reflects in a piece for Ebony.com on how her absent father’s legacy of intelligence pushed her mother to push her. My mother has struggled throughout her life with an undiagnosed developmental disorder. She grew up in a 1950s working class Black family in Detroit. There was little information about…
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Damon Dash Drowning in Debt
Damon Dash, the former head of Roc-a-Fella Records with his old partner Jay-Z, is under water for more than $2 million, reports the Daily News. “I can’t touch my money. I can’t pay certain bills,” Dash said in a wide-ranging talk on Saturday. “But I’m still working every day. It’s not stopping me from hustling.…