By Terri J. Haynes
August 5, 2010
Thomas Chatterton Williams' Losing My Cool is a compelling new memoir that exposes the dangers of hip-hop culture and celebrates the power of education over ignorance.
It wasn't very presidential for President Obama to appear on a daytime talk show like The View, cried his critics. But when Barbara Walters and the other hosts asked him about race in America, his honest response pointed a divided nation in the direction it needs to go.
Once upon a time, LeBron James was Northeast Ohio's amazing basketball prodigy. Now, he seems more like its Prodigal Son.
More than just a legendary entertainer, Lena Horne was a courageous activist against segregation and the racial injustices in Hollywood and society.
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is known for political satire that skewers both the right and left, but his recent skit featuring a vulgarity-spewing gospel choir raises lots of troubling questions. The first one: why isn't the church more outraged?
Among other things, the NBA star's troubles offer this sobering reminder: An occasional joke is okay, but don't quit your day job.
Publishers Weekly, the leading trade publication for the American book industry, is not a magazine that comes to mind when you think "racial drama." A magazine of its ilk doesn't have much reason to push the envelope. But PW made headlines this week for an edgy cover image that some folks have labeled as being racially insensitive. What do you think?
The Tiger Woods scandal is just one more example of how the media use irrelevant gossip and slanted opinion to distract us from what really matters.
The elevation of Black dysfunction and the invisibility of positive Black images are sending destructive messages about the reality of Black life, both to our young people and to those outside the Black community.
Before I begin, I want to make sure that you all know I am 100 percent against what Kanye West did at MTV's Video Music Awards last week. Storming the stage during Taylor Swift's victory speech to rebuke the audience for not selecting Beyonce -- and, in effect, for selecting Taylor Swift -- was not cool.
But, like many people who watched that painful drama unfold on the air and then on Twitter and Facebook in the minutes that followed, I felt there had to be more to the story than just an intoxicated rapper making a scene on national TV.
Putting BET's Business in the Street
Andreas Hale, former Executive Editor of Music for BET.com, got the pink slip this week and tried to take the company down with him. After nearly a year at the urban entertainment network, the executive left his post by sending a fiery email to industry friends confirming what many critics of the network have long suspected: BET is a hot mess.
