culture

Tiger Woods recently announced his new relationship with Lindsey Vonn on a gossip magazine cover, but Khalid Salaam writes on the Shadow League that his choice of women plays into an old stereotype of how to get ahead as a black athlete. Posing for last month’s cover of People Magazine – with his new lady, Olympic skier…

If you’re heading to see 42, the biopic about Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson, be prepared for a sanitized version of his life and racism in America, writes Grantland‘s Wesley Morris. 42 is a Hollywood movie about American racism in which the objects of that racism must summon their most noble selves. [Screenwriter and director] Helgeland, who’s…

After his older brother was killed, Anthony Colon was inconsolable. But as he matured, his feelings of rage became seeds of forgiveness for Michael Rowe, his sibling’s murderer, reports CNN. Then one summer day, a chance encounter while visiting a friend at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York, changed his life. He…

Following Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s well-publicized recent trip to Cuba and the MC’s subsequent song, film director Phil Lord, son of a Cuban refugee, wrote an open letter to Jay-Z. In it, Lord calls him a “dupe” for not being smarter about his island vacation, according to the Huffington Post. But for me, Cuba is not…

A Louisiana Parish Council recently voted to make sagging pants illegal and punishable by fines of up to $100, writes Gawker. The Council of Terrebonne Parish (a council that sounds mystical and awesome, but is being totally uncool here) has brought comfort to old people everywhere who somehow believe that the unstoppable whims of fashion…

On Friday, Kobe Bryant suffered a popped Achilles tendon during a Los Angeles Lakers game and his trainer announced on Saturday that he will be out for the rest of the season, reports CNN. Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant will be out for six to nine months after rupturing his Achilles tendon, a Lakers…

In a piece at CNN, former White House adviser Van Jones argues that the president’s base is angry because instead of asking for more from the rich to shore up Social Security, his budget proposal would take more from the middle class and poor. … Some may call this a knee-jerk response from liberals who…

The Tom Joyner Morning Show’s Nikki Woods writes at BlackAmericaWeb.com that parents should choose love upon learning that their child is gay or lesbian, citing as an example Magic Johnson’s support of his son Earvin Johnson Jr. Last week the world learned what basketball great Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie had known for many…

Earl Ofari Hutchinson argues in a piece at his blog that the NRA is poised to use its considerable influence to water down a gun control bill, holding out 2014 as a carrot for a number of GOP House members and senators who will be facing re-election campaigns in several conservative strongholds. There are two…

(The Root) — If Susannah Baruch were in charge of the nation’s biggest chain pharmacy stores, she’d issue orders today. They would read: Make room on store shelves, somewhere between the pregnancy tests and the condoms, for another form of effective, over-the-counter birth control. “That’s exactly where emergency contraception should be, between the condoms and the…