culture
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My Husband's Too Hard on My Daughter
(The Root) — “I don’t like the way my husband disciplines my 9-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. He doesn’t speak down to her or hit her or anything, but he seems unnecessarily hard on her sometimes by taking away her electronics or TV access for long periods of time or restricting her activities excessively.…
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Fed Up With Schools, Chicago Kids Boycott State Tests
A group of Chicago students protesting the city’s planned school closings and what they see as overreliance on standardized testing boycotted Wednesday’s Prairie State Achievement Exam and demonstrated outside a school board meeting, Yahoo News reports. “Today we are boycotting the second day of PSAE to show that standardized testing should not decide the future…
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'Mad Men' Addresses Its Negro Problem
(The Root) — Since Mad Men premiered in 2007, the show’s diversity (or lack thereof) has been an ongoing, real-life subplot to the series’ success. For a show set against the racially charged backdrop of the 1960s, critics say, the absence of significant black characters isn’t just an oversight; it’s inaccurate. But last week —…
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Rappers and Their Privileged Kids
Hip-hop stars’ hard-knock roots can make it difficult for them to relate to their sheltered children, writes Ebony‘s Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. … Psychologist Dr. Richard Orbe-Austin says the disconnect between a parent who came out of a tough background and their child can trigger a unique set of problems. “In the worst case scenarios, extreme…
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If You Don't Like Other Women, I Don't Trust You
Clutch magazine‘s Britni Danielle explains why “I don’t have any female friends” is a giant red flag. Here’s the thing: I used to be one of those girls. When I was growing up I was a bit of a tomboy and hung out with boys. While I always had a small circle of female friends,…
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Delayed Honor: Congressional Gold Medal for '4 Little Girls'
Addie Mae Collins, 14; Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, 14; and Cynthia Wesley, 14 — known to many as the “four little girls” — were killed on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, in the bombing of an African-American church. It was an act that that drew national attention to Birmingham, Ala.’s racism crisis.…
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Muslims Beyond Caricatures
(The Root) — Muslim-American commentators saturated the airwaves and social-media forums this past week, breaking down how the Boston explosions will affect Islam and its American following. Heads of organizations, political pundits and lay citizens voiced their viewpoints on every channel of the American-media gamut after the two suspected culprits, Dhzokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were…
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Watch: 'Rent Is Too Damn High' Rap Video
The man who popularized the phrase “The rent is too damn high” during his 2010 campaign for New York governor has officially tapped into his inner emcee, the Daily Beast reports. Jimmy McMillan’s anthem on housing costs — whose title is also the name of his political party — has been memorialized in rap form.…
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Inmates 'Control' Baltimore Jail; Get Officers Pregnant
The Washington Post is reporting that, according to an indictment filed this week, 13 female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders. The head of the Maryland agency that oversees the Baltimore City Detention Center has taken full responsibility for the situation. It’s one that, according to the charges,…
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Quote of the Day: T. Thomas Fortune
Read the entire quote here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter. Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.