Uncategorized
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Nadya Suleman and the Food Stamps
I assume we’re all aware of Nadya Suleman. She’s the single California woman who, with the help of an unnamed fertility doctor, gave birth six children and then, surprise, octuplets. Well, the controversial doctor has been named. You know, the man who put Suleman and her babies at risk of death so he could experiment…
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Hold the Hyphen
Black Americans can bask in the glow of a newfound progressiveness this Black History Month. And our first black president also happens to be our first African-American president. Black and African-American—I can’t help dwelling on those two descriptors and the weight they carry in defining us. I’m brown, thank you. But I’ll settle for black.…
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Why We Still Need February
Black History Month has barely begun, but some columnists are calling for an end. It’s time, they say, to abolish the month-long observance because of—you guessed it—the election of Barack Obama. His presidency proves that African Americans are fully intertwined into the American experience. So why relegate our history to a month of “rote and…
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Smartest Guy in The Room
Just in case you missed it, the president of the United States wants you to know that the country is in an unprecedented crisis, “the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression,” and that he is on the job for you. To that end, a stern-faced and grave-toned President Obama went before the American…
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Nadya Suleman: 14 Children, No Job, No Partner
Many feminists seem to support Nadya Suleman’s right to have a total of 14 children without the benefit of a job or life partner: it’s her body, after all. Yeah…that’s fine and dandy for her—but what about the children involved? I’m not saying you need a man, ladies. But caring for kids (14!) isn’t the…
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Too Much Information!
As they teach us in kindergarten, sharing is good. Cookies. Crayons. Blankies. I’m all with it. But there is such a thing as too much sharing—especially when its in the form of information about you that I don’t really need to know. So in homage to that virally popular Facebook tag, wherein people share 25…
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The Chris Brown- Rihanna Incident
Singer Chris Brown needs help, and he’s been asking for it for a long time. Now, there must be something worse than a man putting his hands on a woman in anger, but nothing comes to mind. Barring self-defense, there is no reason whatsoever for a man to ever commit violence towards a woman, I…
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(More) Hard Times for HBCUs
The news that Clark Atlanta University is laying off 70 faculty members and getting rid of P.E. is truly alarming for a number of reasons. For one, in the so-called post-racial moment, many have been questioning the need for HBCUs anyway. We sincerely hope the enrollment freefall experienced in recent years by many HBCUs and…
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News & Notes No More
NPR’s Farai Chideya sounds off about the cancellation of her popular radio show News & Notes. “I’m not convinced that any one of the theories about why our show was cancelled holds up,” she tells blogger Eisa Ulen. Chideya left the show right before inauguration, because, she says, NPR denied her the chance to cover the historic event. News…
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Diary of Tired Black Man
Tim Alexander’s Diary of a Tired Black Man is one of those low-budget straight to DVD movies that promises to unleash rancor all across the genders. Tired Black Man, starring NBC Heroe’s Jimmy Jean-Louis, doesn’t just probe into black female-male relationships, it digs into it with a sledge hammer. The story follows a professional black…