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Sister Study
We’ve all been touched by breast cancer, whether we’ve personally experienced the disease or have a relative, good girlfriend or co-worker who has faced this challenge. We react with a range of emotions and responses to the news that a loved one has breast cancer. Many women hear the news and are spurred to action.…
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‘Thurgood’ Hits Broadway
Like actor Laurence Fishburne, I was in elementary school when the Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court. Today, the Tony Award-winning actor is breathing new life into the late Justice’s words and his struggles in “Thurgood,” an inspirational one-man play in that has begun a limited 16-week run on Broadway. July will mark…
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Black Skin, Blue Passport: Cruising Out of Our Comfort Zones
I recently came across the Web page for Black Cruise Week. The site serves as a kind of clearinghouse for African-American-themed cruises, including everything from Black Gay and Lesbian trips to Tom Joyner’s annual Fantastic Voyage. Thirteen event cruises are scheduled for the rest of this year, with ports of call in Hawaii, the Caribbean…
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Some Marquee Names Showing Their Age in the NBA Playoffs
I first saw pro basketball at the end of the Bill Russell era. Every year it seemed that some team, usually the Knicks, Lakers or 76ers, were better over the course of the regular season; but the Celtics would pull it all together and have just enough mettle and savvy to eek by everyone else…
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Time to Fire Some Folks
There is an image from the 1988 presidential campaign that I can no longer get out of my mind. It is a Doonesbury cartoon. In this four-frame strip there is no dialogue and no action. Each frame simply shows the unmoving figure of Michael Dukakis covered in mud. It pains me greatly that this awful…
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The Trouble With Transcending Race
They both have unique names and amazing life stories. They have legions of adoring fans who find them inspiring. They have sold millions of books and can fill stadiums like rock stars. Few black Americans have occupied the rarified status of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, two “racially transcendent” blacks whom white admirers find appealing…
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Dayo — Obama Presser
Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.
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The Wright Answer
For a while at the National Press Club, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was going along fine. But there was a point—and you can see it with the sound muted—where he started to answer questions and flew off the rails. I know a lot of Old Black Folks doing that Wright Thing: spouting off in public…
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An African Problem in the Heart of Europe
Diaryatou Bah was just eight years old when she went through the most traumatic experience of her life. “A woman brought me into the bush with my grandmother and her sister-in-law,” she recalls. “They took off the red loincloth I was wearing, placed leaves on my face and caught my hands and feet. Then the…
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Charlayne Hunter-Gault's Reporter's Notebook
I am out of Africa and into Singapore—a country mostly off my radar screen—except when I am visiting Francis Daniels, the father of my godson, Themba. To Francis, Singapore’s former Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew is a kind of icon who invariably comes up in conversations about what Africa needs to do to get out…