From The Grio – By now you’ve heard the comment. A noted PGA Tour veteran made an off-color joke about Tiger Woods, referencing fried chicken. After the incident, and the subsequent backlash, the professional backtracked, said he meant the comments in jest, and claimed there was no racist intent. The golf and national media examined the…
In this supposed post-racial society, it seems certain foods still carry racial significance and the sting of degrading stereotypes. Watermelon is one of them. Going back to slavery days, African-Americans were depicted as ignorant, small-minded people who are predisposed to liking the fruit. Fried chicken is another. Black people are seen as having an inordinate…
I am biracial, borne of a Taiwanese mother and American father. My features are decidedly not Caucasian, but hard to pin down to one specific category, a tiny frustration that gets at the heart of humans, because subconsciously, we all live to categorize. I deal with a host of questions pertaining to my background from…
Opinions were divided about whether the Dolce & Gabbana Blackamoor-inspired earrings were racist. The earrings were essentially a headless female figurine wearing a scarf and heavy gold jewelry, and many linked the image with offensive stereotypes of black womanhood. As controversial as the runway jewelry was, the concept has trickled down to mass retailers. Zara is…
Students in an Advanced Cartography course at California’s Humboldt State University have unveiled what many folks already realize: Twitter is racist and homophobic. The students compiled a map of hate speech on Twitter for a project called the “Geography of Hate.” The map used 150,000 tweets sent from June 2012 through April 2013 to determine…
The Los Angeles Police Department is under fire for allegedly profiling University of Southern California students of color at a house party. YouTube footage shows 79 police officers descending on an off-campus gathering thrown by black students to celebrate the end of the semester. Officers cited noise violations as their reason for coming to the…
The operators of an apartment building in southern Brooklyn were facing a lawsuit Tuesday, for allegedly discriminating against potential tenants. The lawsuit filed by the Fair Housing Justice Center claimed black applicants were turned away from the building at 7502 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge, in favor of white applicants. The advocacy group said it…
A Florida high school is getting national attention for a hateful, racist rant two of its students posted on YouTube. In the egregious four-minute clip, the teenage girls claim that people “start turning black” and “catch the disease” of blackness when they enter Santaluces High School. They spent a considerate amount of time making derogatory…
Mayor Bloomberg raised eyebrows yesterday when he accused The New York Times of racial bias. He made the claim during a press conference defending the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk practice. He attempted to redirect attention to the media, claiming news outlets ignore black victims of gun violence while hypocritically criticizing stop-and-frisk. He named The New York…
A new ad by soft drink purveyor Mountain Dew has many condemning it as racist and wholly offensive. The ad, which is a part of an equally belligerent campaign, features Tyler the Creator and his envelop-pushing rap group, Odd Future. The spot depicts a beaten, bruised, and fearful white woman attempting to identify her attacker…
