By Chanel Graham
September 5, 2009
If the stories in this edition of Pop & Circumstance have a common theme, it's the call for audiences -- viewers, listeners, and users of media -- to exercise more compassion, discernment, and responsibility in the way they interact with pop culture. Come to think of it, those are themes found in many editions of P&C. Anyway, we talk about them more explicitly this time around. So let's get started.
In this Juneteenth edition of Pop & Circumstance, we consider the U.S. Senate's late-but-official apology for slavery and Jim Crow, Tweets from a revolution, Jazz at the White House, 'Speidi' and the problem with reality TV religion, and what will Mary Mary sing at the BET Awards?
Every day across America we see self-segregation in lunchrooms, in classrooms, and in church pews on Sunday morning. But how about online?
Recently I began looking around the online spaces I frequent: Twitter and Facebook. I wondered if people, particularly those who were just online for social reasons, mix and mingle any differently than they do face-to-face.
You've got to wonder if Disney is starting to have second thoughts about producing a film with an African American princess. A few weeks ago we told you about the drama surrounding the upcoming release of The Princess and the Frog, a new animated film featuring Disney's first black princess. Well, people still aren't quite sure what to do with Princess Tiana.
Like Kool-Aid and hot combs, Ebony and Jet have been fixtures in African American households for decades. As a little girl I dreamed of my mocha almond skin appearing on the cover of Ebony, and I got my weekly fix of black news from Jet. So this week when I received an email that's been making its 
rounds through the black community pleading for people to subscribe to both publications, I was surprised by my own apathy. Are Ebony and Jet still worth saving? To be honest, I traded in Ebony for Essence, and Jet for TheRoot.com a long time ago. So as with all moral conundrums, I took to the Internet to see what the bloggers were saying and found that many people share my guilt-ridden lack of enthusiasm about the possible shuttering of these historic publications.
Welcome to Pop & Circumstance. This new column will be UrbanFaith's weekly spin on the latest entertainment and pop culture news. If you read something you agree or disagree with, want to share your personal reviews of the latest movies and music, or if you just want to let us know about something we should be covering, please don't hesitate to chime in. Well, here goes ...
