culture
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Kimani Gray's Parents to Sue NYC
The parents of 16-year-old Kimani Gray, whose March shooting death by two plainclothes New York City Police Department officers set off multiple protests and demonstrations, are planning to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city, the Daily News reports. They claim that officers used excessive force in the fatal shooting and that their son didn’t…
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Malcolm Shabazz on 'Formula for a Public Assassination'
Malcolm Shabazz, the 28-year-old grandson of Malcolm X, was reported dead in Mexico by U.S. authorities on Thursday. As news of his death and reports about its circumstances circulate (some reports state that he was shot, and others claim that he died from injuries caused by being thrown off a building during a robbery attempt),…
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We Shall Not Be Moved on Economic Justice
(Special to The Root) — “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” Those were the words of W.E.B. Du Bois in 1903, six years before he co-founded the NAACP to ensure the “political, educational, social and economic equality…
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A Brief History of the FBI’s Most Wanted Lists
Assata Shakur is just the latest in a long list of black revolutionaries who have been among the FBI’s most sought-after criminal suspects, Jamilah King writes at Colorlines. History of the Lists To understand how the FBI’s Most Wanted lists work, it’s important to know how they were developed. At their core, the lists are…
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Racism in 2013: Just Get Over It?
Writing at the Huffington Post, Theodore Johnson says that “move on” is the most ridiculous of propositions when it comes to concerns about African-American stereotypes. In a recent article written about the African-American-watermelon stereotype for Huffington Post/TEDWeekends, I wrote that its deep iconography persists years after it should have spoiled and died on the vine.…
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My Racist Experience at the White House Correspondents' Dinner
It’s the little indignities that slowly devastate your soul,” the Huffington Post‘s Seema Jilani writes in a piece about what she says was “white privilege on display.” … They refused to let me through. For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him. Then something…
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Aunt Viv: I Felt Demonized, Beaten Up and Crucified
Janet Hubert, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s original Aunt Viv, last made headlines for a dramatic open letter calling talk-show host Wendy Williams a “demon” and “devilish.” Now she’s put herself in the spotlight again, telling Yahoo’s OMG! that both Will Smith and Alfonso Ribiero, who played Carlton, were “bad kids” on the set of…
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Malcolm X's Grandson Killed in Mexico
The Amsterdam News is reporting, and the U.S. Embassy has confirmed, that Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X, has been killed in Mexico. Unconfirmed reports say he died early Thursday morning from injuries sustained when he was thrown off a building or shot as he was being robbed in Tijuana. “I’m confirming, per U.S. Embassy,…
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Wet Seal Settles Racial-Discrimination Case
(The Root) — An email from a former Wet Seal president of store operations instructing a district manager to “clean the entire store out” by firing black managers and saying that “African Americans dominate — huge issue” was at the center of a lawsuit against the teen-fashion retailer that was settled on Wednesday. The NAACP…
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How a 'Proud' Lesbian Became a Pol's Wife
In 1979 Chirlane McCray declared in an essay for Essence magazine, “I am a lesbian.” Thirty-four years later she returned to the publication for an interview about what happened between that groundbreaking piece and her current “traditional marriage” to Bill de Blasio, who’s running for mayor of New York City. Check out a few highlights.…