news
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Faculty Leaders Call on Howard University President, Top Administrators to Resign
Howard University’s faculty leaders have joined the chorus of calls for beleaguered President Wayne A.I. Frederick to resign. A letter sent out on April 20 singles out Frederick, HU’s board chairman and two administrators, asking for their resignations following a financial aid scandal and other controversies at the university. The letter, recently publicized by the…
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Women of Color Within Time’s Up Join #MuteRKelly Protest
To Our Fellow Women of Color: We see you. We hear you. Because we are you. For too long, our community has ignored our pain. The pain we bear is a burden that too many women of color have had to bear for centuries. The wounds run deep. As women of color within Time’s Up,…
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Black Girls Most Harshly Disciplined Over School Dress Codes, Study Finds
We all know that black girls are disciplined more harshly for the same infractions as their white peers in schools (and life), but a new study shows that part of this disparity is linked to school-uniform policies. The National Women’s Law Center recently looked at school dress codes in Washington, D.C., and found that black…
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Father of Black Liberation Theology, the Rev. Dr. James Cone, Dies at 79
It seems appropriate that the Rev. Dr. James Hal Cone—radical Christian, father of black liberation theology, soldier against white supremacy, renowned author and longtime academic around the American phenomenon of lynching—would die the same week that the national lynching memorial opened in Montgomery, Ala. It is a divine nod to a job well done. Cone,…
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Suckabee Goes Down in Flames as a Proxy for Donald Trump at White House Correspondents’ Dinner; Snowflakes Liquefy
I didn’t know who comedian Michelle Wolf was before, but I know her now. And I think I love her. At Saturday night’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Wolf flamed the Trump administration and its flunkies (since Donald Trump is too much of a punk to take the jabs himself), and conservatives the world…
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Wisconsin Police Who Tased Mentally Ill Black Man 18 Times Face No Charges in His Death
In what has become a subplague in the epidemic of police violence, two police in West Milwaukee, Wis., will not be charged in the death of a 22-year-old man diagnosed with schizophrenia, whom they tased more than a dozen times. On Friday, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm opted not to bring any charges against…
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Seattle Vacates Hundreds of Marijuana Charges Going Back 30 Years
On Friday the city of Seattle filed a motion asking the Seattle Municipal Court to vacate hundreds of marijuana-possession convictions going back three decades and adversely impacting people of color. City Attorney Pete Holmes acknowledged the racial disparity in marijuana convictions, citing an ACLU report showing that African Americans are more than three times more…
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Virginia Newspaper Runs KKK Flyer on Its Front Page. Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
This has been said before, but it is worth repeating: To those allies who want to expose racism in 2018, think first about your tactics before you pat yourself on the back. To not even consider how the “big reveal” might affect those who experience racism the most (like the time the New York Daily…
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#MeToo: Ann Curry Reported Matt Lauer for Sexual Harassment in 2012
Former Today co-host Ann Curry reported Matt Lauer for sexual harassment in 2012 on behalf of a female NBC staffer who was afraid for her job and asked Curry to help her. Curry told the Washington Post: “A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her. She was afraid of losing…
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House ‘Intelligence’ Committee Clears Trump, Associates of Wrongdoing in 2016 Election
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a redacted version of the final report on their yearlong investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Don’t worry; I read it for you. The report concludes that neither the president nor his known associates “colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government.” This, ladies…