Breaking News! History in the Making
Ridiculed For Having a ‘Black Name’
By Black Voices, HuffingtonPost.com Everyone feels an emotional tie to how a name can signify identity, but some names speak to the direct impact of the stereotypes promoted in society. For African-Americans, the conversation around the impact of having a “black” name is a highly charged one. For 19-year-old Keisha Austin, of Kansas City, MO., the…
Klansman Halloween Costume
By Cavan Sieczkowski, Huffingtonpost.com Jessica Black of Craigsville, Va., let her son, Jackson, dress as a Klansman with a floor-length white robe and full-faced white hood, according to local ABC affiliate WHSV. The outfit garnered media attention after a photo of the boy dressed in the KKK regalia was posted to the WHSV Facebook page.…
A Reminder of Black Heroism
By Rhonesha Byng, HuffingtonPost.com In a world where two men were insensitive enough to dress up as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman for a Halloween party, and a black college student is arrested at a high-end luxury department store for buying a belt, this teen’s story will restore your faith in humanity. In a series on…
A Disrespectful Halloween Costume is Causing Social Media Controversy
By Lily Worneh, TheGrio.com An incendiary photo was posted to Facebook this Friday featuring two young Florida men dressed as George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, complete with blackface, a blood-stained hoodie and a shirt that reads, “Neighborhood Watch.” The image was reportedly uploaded by Caitlin Cimeno from Martha’s Vineyard who captioned the photo: “Happy Halloween from…
For Rent: Former Slave Quarters
by Kristina Chew, Care2.com Would you rent an apartment that, a century and a half ago, was once a slave cabin? Chuck Corley, a developer from Columbia, South Carolina, seems to think that someone will, says NBC News. Corley, who has renovated other historic sites, including the Lemmon Hill Plantation and Corley Hall Plantation, is planning to turn the long-empty, boarded-up structures…
Only Blonde White Waitresses Are Allowed To Have Hair Highlights At Hooters?
By CBS Baltimore, baltimore.cbslocal.com The popular restaurant chain Hooters is accused of racial discrimination by a former employee in Baltimore. And it all centers around her hair. (. . .) Farryn Johnson’s blonde highlights are now at the center of a complaint filed with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. “My other co-workers, they all had…
New Statistics on African-American’s That Identify As LGBT
By HuffingtonPost.com A new report is shedding light on the growing number of individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in the black community. According to a recent study, there are more than one million African-American LGBT adults in the U.S. Of those individuals, 84,000 are in same-sex households with about 34 percent of…
Black History Document Found in Chicago Home Before Demolition
By Susanne M. Schafer, BigStory.Ap.Org The first black man to become a University of South Carolina professor in 1873 was hailed Tuesday as a “man of courage,” who taught during the school’s fleeting era of post-Civil War desegregation and ended up inspiring the generations of scholars who followed. Richard Theodore Greener, a promising intellectual who…
Insight on Kilpatrick’s 28-year sentence
By Ashely Woods, HuffingtonPost.com By the time 43-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick is released from prison, he’ll likely be eligible for Social Security. The former Detroit mayor was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds after being convicted of 24 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, mail fraud and other charges related to his corrupt activities while…
’12 Years a Slave’ Director and Actress to Be Honored at Hollywood Film Awards
Steve McQueen and Lupita Nyong’o to be recognized on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton By Scott Feinberg, the Hollywood Reporter 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and supporting actress Lupita Nyong’o will receive the Hollywood Breakout Director Award and New Hollywood Award, respectively, at the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively. The event, held on Oct. 21…
Who Doesn’t Want a Barbie That Looks Like Them?
By Amanda Scherker, HuffingtonPost.com If you’ve ever tried to find a black doll at your local toy store, you may have noticed they usually come with tamed, straightened hairstyles. But one California mom, fed-up with that status quo, started a business making dolls with a fabulously diverse spectrum of natural hairdos — and her products…
Black History: October 7th 1954
By HuffingtonPost.com (October 7th) in 1954, the New York Metropolitan Opera hired Marian Anderson making her the first black singer that the famed opera house signed on. Anderson would make her debut performance with the company three months later, on January 7, 1955. Before the big hire, Anderson made a name for herself performing at venues like…
Do Racial Issues Still Push Some Over the Edge?
By Richard Prince, theRoot.com The suspect slain after a chase from the White House to the U.S. Capitol Thursday wasn’t identified by race, unlike the Washington Navy Yard killer who left 12 others dead less than three weeks earlier. Miriam Carey wasn’t at large, as was Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, Texas, whose race was broadcast when reporters had little…
Never-Ending Story: ‘Conversation About Race’ Has Not Brought Cultural Consensus
By A.O. Scott, The New York Times The “conversation about race” that public figures periodically claim to desire, the one that is always either about to happen or is being prevented from happening, has been going on, at full volume, at least since the day in 1619 when the first African slaves arrived in Jamestown.…
KKK Rally At Gettysburg Canceled Because Of Government Shutdown
By Paige Lavender, Huffington Post A Ku Klux Klan rally planned for Saturday, Oct. 5 has been canceled because of the government shutdown. On Sept. 26, officials at Gettysburg National Military Park granted a special-use permit for a rally to a Maryland-based KKK group. According to NBC 10 Philadelphia, the event was canceled when park officials rescinded all permits for special events…
Unequal Pain Relief in the Emergency Room
By Nicolas Bakalar, The New York Times Black and Hispanic children who go to an emergency room with stomach pain are less likely than white children to receive pain medication, a new study reports, and more likely to spend long hours in the emergency room. The analysis, published in the October issue of Pediatrics, examined the…
Hollywood’s Race Problem
By Kia Makarechi, www.HuffingtonPost.com In bleak situations, incremental improvements can be mistaken for big time progress. So it goes with Hollywood’s consistent inability to include actors of color. Popular critical consensus suggests that we may have as many as four black Best Actor nominees: Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), Idris Elba (“Mandela: Long Walk…
‘Because You’re Black’
By Nathan Place and Erin Durkin, NYDailyNews.com At the Framboise Patisserie in Middle Village, Queens, the pastries are elegant, the cakes are custom-made — and city officials say the hiring is discriminatory.“I can’t hire you because you’re black,” Jamilah DaCosta, 25, said she heard when she applied for a job working the counter at the…
Hate Crime Punished With Excecution
By Julie Carr Smyth, TheBigStory.ap.org A white gunman who spewed racial slurs before fatally shooting a black man and a police officer in a 1994 rampage that prosecutors called one of Ohio’s worst crimes was put to death Wednesday with the state’s last dose of its execution drug. (…) Mitts was convicted of aggravated murder…
Act Like a Slave?
By Jamil Smith, Tv.Msnbc.com When James Baker heard the words “Nature’s Classroom” in reference to the Massachusetts location of his 12-year-old daughter’s forthcoming four-day field trip, he thought she and her fellow students would “just be going to learn what side of the tree moss grows on.” Instead, as he and his wife Sandra described…
New Mandela Film Well Received in South Africa
By Ron Allen, NBCnews.com, TheGrio.com I think he would be pleased.” The words of Ahmed Kathrada, one of Nelson Mandela’s closest confidants, giving what he thinks would be Mandela’s assessment of the new film based on his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. “This will be the first fairly complete resume of his life from childhood onward,” Kathrada…