Leo Alexander: I was an Obama Kool-Aid Drinker, Now I Just Can’t Do It Anymore
by Leo Alexander I drunk the Kool-Aid too back in ’08. I fell in love with the symbolism of a black family in the White House. I believed in his campaign slogan of “Hope and Change” and his story of being a biracial, Harvard educated, community organizer in the ghettoes of Chicago. I was the [...]
Behind Pepsico’s Epic Fail in Marketing This Week: What Happened?
It’s less than an hour by train and metro from Purchase, the Westchester County, New York State HQ of PepsiCo, to the Bronx or Harlem. But, judging by PepsiCo’s epic fail with its latest Mountain Dew ad campaign, it might as well be a million miles or a different planetary system. Anybody familiar with Mountain Dew advertising [...]
Does a Black Man Getting Corporate Money Mean that Racism is Dead?
Last week, a controversy exploded over a new Mountain Dew ad created and directed by the rapper Tyler the Creator, one of the most visible figures in the hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, which Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins—who is himself black—suggested was one of the most racist bits ad spots [...]
Al Sharpton Accused of Helping Lead FBI to Assata Shakur
The Rev. and the Fugitive Sharpton tried to set up Chesimard, activists say By Ron Howell, Newsday, Friday 21 October 1988 The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has worked as a federal informant, tried to set up a meeting with black fugitive radical JoAnne Chesimard in 1983, according to activists who said they were approached by [...]
MTV Asks: Was that Mountain Dew Ad Really Racist?
By Maurice Bobb Rap ads are in danger. After Dr. Boyce Watkins wrote a scathing post, “Mountain Dew Releases Arguably the Most Racist Commercial in History,” which appeared onYourBlackWorld Wednesday (May 1), alleging that a new commercial featuring Felicia the Goat, directed by Tyler, the Creator under his Wolf Haley alias, is rife with racist images and [...]
Dr. Julianne Malveaux: When in Doubt, Blame the Dark-Skinned Man
by Dr. Julianne Malveaux I don’t know where CNN’s John King got the information that a suspect in the Boston bombing was “a dark-skinned male”, but beyond apologizing he needs to explain himself. How many sources gave him the false tip? If it was fewer than two, then he violated a basic journalism rule. Who [...]
Not an Urban Queen: Rants of a Bibliophile
I eagerly spend time in bookstores. They are part of my life, real books, even though my family purchased the Kindle Fire for me for Christmas, there is something about real books. The day all the kids were back in their respective classroom, I found myself at the mall, at the bookstore, [...]
NAACP Pres Ben Jealous Speaks on Joining Incarceration Coalition with Dr. Boyce Watkins and Russell Simmons
By Benjamin Todd Jealous The United States has five percent of the world’s people but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. For the sake of our families and future we must do better. Our nation leads the world in the incarceration of our own citizens, both on a per capita basis and in [...]
Tiger Woods Dating: For Love or Profit?
Tiger Woods recently announced his new relationship with Lindsey Vonn on a gossip magazine cover, but Khalid Salaam writes on the Shadow League that his choice of women plays into an old stereotype of how to get ahead as a black athlete. Posing for last month’s cover of People Magazine – with his new lady, Olympic [...]
Falling Far from the Tree: Thurgood Marshall Jr. Sits on the Board for the Corrections Corporations of America
By Kim Moore This serves as both an open letter to Thurgood Marshall Jr, a PSA for those who didn’t know about his appointment to CCA and a reminder about mass incarceration, and the overrepresentation of black men in prison. It came as a complete and utter shock to discover yesterday that Thurgood Marshall Jr, [...]
May 21, 20131 CommentRead More