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The State of Our Movement
There is little doubt that Barack Obama’s election presents not only a historic moment for black America, but one filled with enormous potential for change. As outlined in the State of AIDS in Black America section of this report, the new administration and Congress face grave challenges, but also great opportunities to revive black America’s…
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Executive Summary: Making Change Real
The 2009 edition of the Black AIDS Institute’s annual State of AIDS in Black America report lays out both the promise and the peril of the unique moment at which we’ve arrived in this epidemic. On one hand, the historic election of Barack Obama and a congressional majority that has been more supportive of the…
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The Root's Black Love Gift Guide
Who will ever forget the first moment Barack and Michelle Obama took to the dance floor on the evening of the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball? Our president, dashing in his tuxedo, and our first lady, a vision of loveliness in white, were serenaded by Beyoncé to Etta James’ famous “At Last.” The rest of us reveled…
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Me, You, Colds, Flu…
We’re entering into the thick of cold and flu season, and it doesn’t take somone who is super germaphobic (remember Jack Nicholson’s character, Melvin in As Good As It Gets? He used a FRESH BAR OF SOAP every time he washed his hands!) to be a little uneasy. We don’t have to do a Full…
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Weeding Out Justice
The Buzz gets no satisfaction player hating those who regularly spark the leaf. But we’re in favor of a just application of the law when it comes to marijuana. As Stanton Peele writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Arrest Michael Phelps!”—unless the kid glove, superstar treatment is going to be applied equally to African Americans…
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Like $500,000 Is A Real Salary Cap!?
This morning’s lead story in The New York Times addresses President Obama’s efforts to change corporate culture by caping executive salaries to $500,000. Now, as much as The Buzz loves the Big O, we can’t help but say, “Whatchu talkin’ bout, Bama?” They’re even astounded Down Under, where the online newspaper The Australian makes note…
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Blacks and Advanced Placement Exams
New York Times Tamar Lewin authored an interesting piece yesterday on black high-schoolers and their unwillingness to take the Advanced Placement [AP] exam. As we know the AP program allows students to take university-level courses and if they pass the final AP exam they can earn college credit. Lewin’s article points out that while Americans…
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Still Shooting At Us
It’s an odd sort of memorial we arrive at today: Looking back on a 10-year-old police execution of an unarmed black man. It feels terribly incongruent with the political high we’re now on, more like a bad memory than a resonant reminder of the challenges we face as a nation. But here we are. It…
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Motown 2.0
R&B albums rarely combine the multiple musical legacies of one given city and catch the zeitgeist of its time as masterfully as PPP’s sophomore disc, Abundance (Ubiquity). As the title suggests, producer Waajeed and multi-instrumentalist Saadiq—the group’s two brainiacs—pack so much historical reference, so much modern perspective, so much deft musicality, so much lyrical ingenuity,…