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NPR News and Notes With Farai Chideya

Archive for the 'Political Correctness?' Category

02 Jul

Malawi’s biggest star adopts white child from the Ozarks


18 Jun

“Hitler” & “Lynch him”- Sports channels need to provide history lessons

Well it’s Wednesday, which means another sports journalist has been suspended for lacking the most basic understanding of historic atrocities and their present day reverberations.

17 Jun

Looking for Barack Obama…

Does this look like Barack Obama to you? A German manufacturer thinks so.

Does this look like Barack Obama? A Utah Couple thinks so. Or thought so. And they think “he’s so cute and cuddly.” TheSockObama doll, not Barack. Well, maybe Barack; they don’t say. But as of today they have stopped selling their odd lil’ [...]

02 Jun

Now writing for AOL Black Voices - Blackspin Blog

I am so excited to invite you to join me Monday through Friday at my second gig as a news/racial issues blogger for AOL’s Black Voices Blackspin blog. It’s a lot of fun already and the community is very interactive as far as comments go.
I love to hear what you all have to say, [...]

29 May

Black: When and why did it become a bad word? Part II

Another story
So unfortunately, one of the poll workers on my team has hurt her back and she will not be available to work next Tuesday’s election. We had a lovely chat, but one exchange tickled my funny bone and fell right into the question I’m asking right now.
We found ourselves talking about how this was [...]

28 May

Black: When and why did it become a bad word? Part I

One Story
So I accompanied my husband to the mobile phone store because we needed to replace his old, outdated flip phone with a Blackberry. My back was killing me that day and so as we got to the counter and began the l-o-n-g process of purchasing and activating his new toy, I took the opportunity [...]

15 May

To Michael Steele: An open thank-you note

Dear Mr. Steele,
This note is long overdue. I write to thank you for single handedly disproving the myth that black people, in herd like fashion, will always vote for the black guy because he’s black. The fact that you lost your bid for an open Maryland Senate seat in November 2006 does more to refute [...]

07 May

Call him Nominee

With a decisive win in North Carolina and losing by a squeaker in Indiana, a white Mid-Western state, Barack Obama has solidified his position as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party. As has been repeated on every cable show I watched, there is simply no honorable way for Hillary Clinton to wrest the [...]

11 Mar

Ferraro: “They’re attacking me because I’m white!”

**Update: In 1988 Ferraro said this about Jesse Jackson :”“if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”
I think former Vice-Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro must have lost her mind. Just as Clinton tries to angle a little momentum, Ferraro goes and blasts more Clintonesque racial spittle all over everything. After being [...]

07 Mar

Blackface IS bad. But is it ever funny?

On August 15th, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Ben Stiller are set to star in Stiller’s latest comedy ‘Tropic Thunder’.

According to reports, Downey Jr. plays a white actor who takes a role originally written for a black actor and dyes his skin to play the role as a black man. His character does all [...]

17 Jan

But WHY did they gasp?

A little “hoof in mouth” disease caught up with rancher William Farr on Wednesday night.
A Greeley businessman apologized Wednesday after a joke about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fell flat during the National Western Stock Show’s annual Citizen of the West banquet.
William R. Farr was pretending to read telegrams congratulating this year’s award recipient, University of [...]

13 Nov

Word Problems: Are insults important?

It’s a mistake to teach our kids that hackneyed, unconvincing rhyme about sticks and stones and words never hurting. Most of us know that words can slice and dice with the precision of a scalpel’s edge. Words set the foundation for periods of great tolerance and expansion. And words billow and swirl into caustic clouds [...]

05 Nov

The Topsoil: Dog the Bounty Hunter

Contributor Andrew Padula has been in situations throughout his life where he has felt compelled to address racial issues from his unusual perspective. Andrew is a white, politically conservative, blues musician who has been teaching and touring the U.S. and Europe since 1993. He can be seen with blues legend Bobby Parker on B.E.T. Jazz [...]

23 Oct

Nas names his new album

Multi-platinum selling hip hop artist Nas has decided to name his upcoming album Nigger. And he doesn’t want to hear about it from the likes of me.
“We’re taking power [away] from the word,” he added. “No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil-rights movement, but some of my n—as in the [...]

18 Oct

Team Cosby

Bill Cosby is right. He may not be right in every little detailed observation of the intra-racial problems plaguing the black community, but his overall picture is true.
MR. COSBY: Let’s deal first with what people call the systemic—the, the racism that exists in this country, which is absolutely for real. But [...]