culture
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How '42' Star Prepped to Play Baseball Great
(The Root) — Is it irony or fate that the same week the film 42 is opening, rumblings are surfacing that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is creating a task force to examine why African Americans make up only 7.7 percent of MLB’s players? The biopic about how Jackie Robinson — the legendary player…
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Abortion House of Horrors: Why a Draw?
Updated Monday, May 13, 2013: Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder for severing the spinal cords of infants born during abortions, according to the Washington Post. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died from an overdose of drugs…
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Black America: Still a Tale of 2 Countries
The Root DC’s Hamil R. Harris analyzes the results of a recent Urban League report. While African Americans have made significant economic gains since the 1960s the definition of wealth and success remains a tale of the haves and the have nots when black achievement is compared to the success of whites. The National Urban League…
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Marriage Is Great, but LGBT People of Color Need Job Security
Lack of legal protections for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in two-thirds of the 50 states means that more people live in poverty because they don’t have the same rights as other Americans, Imara Jones writes at Colorlines. As the Supreme Court weighed arguments on same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts…
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The Huxtables Were Awesome: Statistical Proof
OK, maybe it isn’t statistical proof that the Cosby Show’s Huxtable family was the best ever, but there’s certainly some data reminding us that the fictional clan was widely loved. In a recent survey, TV fans of all races liked the idea of being a part of their tightly knit and stereotype-defying African-American household. From…
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On Sex, Race and Tyga at Harvard
In a piece for Manifesta magazine, Joshua Hernández and Rachel Cheong, two “self-identified feminists of color on the Ivy League grind,” take on the issue of the rapper Tyga’s invitation to perform on their campus. The takeaway: Controversy aside, it’s time to come together as a community to fight racist patriarchy. Let’s start off by…
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Stars You May Not Know Are of Color
(The Root) — It’s been 30 years since Flashdance found its way into our hearts and into the 1980s dance-movie canon. It was also when we were introduced to actress Jennifer Beals, a svelte brunette who later revealed that she was part black. Who knew? Here are other black and Latino celebs who have incited…
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Jay-Z's 'Open Letter': 'Turned Havana Into Atlanta'
Having apparently graduated from beef with other rappers, music mogul, entrepreneur and Cuba fan Jay-Z has released ‘Open Letter,’ a track it seems he threw together to give a piece of his mind to the Florida Republican politicians who criticized the fifth-anniversary trip that he and Beyoncé took to the island nation. From the Huffington…
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The IRS Doesn't Need a Warrant to Read Your Email
With only four days left for us to file taxes, the Huffington Post reports on some interesting documents released Wednesday by the Internal Revenue Service, which states that it doesn’t need a warrant to read taxpayers’ emails — or at least some of them. The files were released to the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom…
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Chilli Remembers TLC's 'No Scrubs'
The news that TLC’s hit record “No Scrubs” is now 14 years old might make some people feel old. In April 1999, the catchy song about deadbeats who ride shotgun reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, where it remained for four weeks. But the song has aged well, and as Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas points…