Oprah was a victim of racism in Switzerland. A racist retailer told the Billionaire she couldn’t afford a $38,100 handbag. Oprah made $77 million last year.
While promoting her new movie Lee Daniel’s The Butler, Mariah Carey reveals that a white person spat on her when she was younger.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart proves that race remains a difficult subject. Correspondents Jessica Williams (black) and Samantha Bee (white) convene two panels to discuss the state of race relations in America.
Rapper Talib Kweli joined Florida-based activists The Dream Defenders in their fight for “Trayvon’s Law.” Last week, they were joined by iconic singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte.
Henry Louis Gates is producing a documentary series titled The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The six-hour PBS special, which starts on October 22nd at 8PM, will trace 500 years of black history.
Swastikas and phrases “Heil Hitler,” “die nigger,” “fuck nigger” and “fuck Jackie Robinson” were scrawled on a Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese statue at Brooklyn’s MCU Park. Police are investigating the incident.
Jay Z’s presence may be charity, but fellow hip-hop icon Nas is pairing his celebrity with cyberactivism.
The “I Can” rapper set up a Crowd Tilt campaign for Stanley Young. (Crowd Tilt is similar to the ever-popular Kickstarter; it provides a platform to pool funds for various reasons.) Stanley is an unemployed construction worker and single father (his wife died last year) who lost his home to a fire two weeks ago.
A store below Stanley’s home caught fire and spread to his home. He and his seven kids are currently living off Ramen Noodles in a D.C. hotel but will be kicked out by August 13th due to lack of funds.
“Trayvon, little boy wonder, I survivor you.” Omari Hardwick was so moved by George Zimmerman being acquitted for murdering Trayvon Martin that he dedicated a poignant poem appropriately titled “Little Black Boy Wonder” to him. A host of notable black actors, including Marlon Wayans, Jay Ellis and Gary Dourdan, assisted him in reciting the poem in an accompanying video.
Janelle Monáe electrifies stages all over the world and is still privy to what’s happening in the world. The eloquent Kansan ‘expressed a few things’ regarding the George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict.
Last year, Roland Martin came under fire after a tweet he deemed harmless was interpreted by many as anti-gay and homophobic. Despite that setback, Roland still says what he’s thinking, and most of the time, it’s what everyone else is scared to say. Earlier this week, he discharged a series of tweets to his 230K followers regarding Jay Z’s disrespectful comments about Harry Belafonte. “Epic” is the only word to describe his history lesson.
Jay Z’s friend hip-hop journalist dream hampton says ‘Jay Z is the Sidney Poitier of his time’.
President Obama doesn’t speak on race, racial injustice and racial disparities often, but when he does, you can expect his words to resonate with empathy and poignancy and necessity and significance. Frankly, President Obama is the perfect person to discuss race—not because his blackness and position automatically makes him the representative of the black voice, but because when he talks, people listen.
Days ago, he released a statement regarding the George Zimmerman trial verdict. In short, it was pathetic. Actually, it was less than pathetic. It was cold; it was detached; it was jarring.
Juror B37 claims that race played no role whatsoever in the verdict, but she says (with confidence) that “[Trayvon Martin] wasn’t going to let [George Zimmerman] scare him,” so he “got mad” and “attacked” George, who was “no doubt” in fear for his life and had every “right to defend himself.”
It’s not surprising that juror B37, and apparently the remaining jurors, is confident that Trayvon threw the first punch. Racists tend to view black males as hyper-masculine, violent, angry negroes that are too stupid to control their aggression. To them, Trayvon, being the gold grill-wearing thug that he is, could not have felt threatened by George Zimmerman creepily watching and stalking him. It was in Trayvon’s blood to get the “one over,” as juror B37 describes it, on George.
Throughout her interview with CNN‘s Anderson Cooper, Juror B37 did not shield her compassion for George or her contempt for black people.
On July 13, 2013, a jury of six Florida women told Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin that their child’s life’s value was less than zero; legal “experts” reveled in their “I told you sos”; conservative grave-dancers rejoiced that the court upheld the privilege of a gun-toting, white-passing man; militant racists were encouraged; parents whose children happen to be black held their kids a bit tighter; and Robert Zimmerman, George’s brother, continued vilifying Trayvon Martin.
“There are people that would want to take the law into their own hands as they perceive it, or be vigilantes in some sense,” Robert told Piers Morgan as his brother, a vigilante cop wannabe, walked away a free man after taking the law into his own hands.
According to human rights organization Reprieve, as Ramadan begins, 44 of the 120 hunger-striker detainees at Guantánamo Bay are being force-fed against their will. The strike is in protest against their ongoing detention, despite the vast majority of prisoners never having been charged or tried.
We are indeed in the digital age. Gone are the days of professional press conferences or well-written press releases published by the Associated Press. Celebrities make full use out of social media, even though sometimes the result is a train-wreck. (I’m talking to you, Paula.)
Dwight Howard exploited Twitter to end the ongoing speculation regarding what jersey he’d be wearing next season. He changed his Twitter avi to the above photo, location to “Houston, TX,” and tweeted the following:
