Your summer trips don't have to be like the Johnson Family Vacation
Black travel clubs will probably point you in a better direction than Orbitz and Travelocity. [FWS-T]
Bank of America is in trouble for steering black investment-division employees toward poorer clients and sales territories. [BG]
After nooses were hung on high school grounds, a black student was beat up a a white party, and a white man pulled a shotgun on three black kids, six black students have been arrested for jumping a white kid who had been making racial taunts. Arrested for attempted murder. It's called justice is in a small Louisiana town. [CT]
Too bad honor roll student Carl Noldon was forbidden from delivering his speech about "Eurocentric" education at a school assembly. The administrators might have learned something. [NAM]
Black women are stuck between Barack and a hard place. [IS]
Although its referees allegedly harbor some subconscious racial bias, the NBA gets an A- for (diversity) effort. The authority on race and gender in sports, Richard Lapchick, gave the NBA the highest grade among men's sports leagues for the 15th year in a row. But what's holding them back from a perfect score? I wonder if the minus after that "A" had something to do with the fact that white men keep winning league MVP.
Gimmicky New Jack R&B duo, Men At Large, who weigh a collective 750 lbs are encouraging black men to lose 2 million lbs together. Oh, and they have a new album. [Vibe]
Twice as many white teenagers have jobs than black teenagers. Don't worry! Once they grow up, the unemployment gap, uh, stays the same, actually. I give up . [BPUSA]
Finally, someone noticed how ineffective the (usually hard-to-find) "black author" section in the bookstore is. [RCP]
In yet another waste-of-money study, the Kaiser foundation discovered that blacks were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina than whites. Somebody deserves a Nobel Prize. [WP]
The Black Athlete Forum gives a white sports columnist goosebumps. So does a Spike Lee film. We're an entertaining bunch. [ESPN]
Being young, black, and highly educated in a place where no one else is like you for miles around? It sounds like a pretty raw deal to me. But the Young Black Professional Guide asked some people to point out some pros — like quality of living, ethnic (as opposed to racial) diversity, and the ability to set the bar in your chosen profession — to residing in places that don't traditionally have large black professional populations. Read some of the YBP testimonials after the jump. CONTINUED »
Vote For Me, Hillary Clinton. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Amen!
Hillary Clinton's getting criticized for occasionally lapsing into the voice of a "black female preacher," all of whom apparently have the same exact accent. [CT]
Black people are not so interested in becoming dentists these days. I wonder what the stats are on grill-makers? [CPD]
Leimert Park, LA's "black bohemia," is about to just be plain old bohemia. [SJMN]
Not bloody shocking: blacks and Asians in the UK are twice as likely to live in poverty than whites. [Ind]
Georgia politicians continue to try to come to grips with the fact that it's no longer the Reconstruction. [SMN]
Hard work...but plenty of sideline sizzle. Stereohyped's exclusive chat with the author
Yes, Erika Kendrick was a cheerleader for the Chicago Bulls and worked in the music industry. No, she is not the heroine of her debut novel, Confessions of a Rookie Cheerleader, an NBA cheerleader named Hannah Love who also works in the music biz. It comes as no surprise that her readers often draw a different conclusion.
“To them I say, Hannah is a fabulous ride or die chick,” Kendrick says on the phone between radio interviews. “And I can only hope to grow up to be like her.”
In Confessions, Hannah's a young music exec on the rise who joins the cheerleading squad for the fictional Chicago Diamonds. In the process, she falls for the team's star player and struggles to stay afloat in the cutthroat music world. She’s a fictional character, but there are obviously parts of Kendrick in Hannah, most notably in the fact that Love sees a therapist throughout the book. It serves as a tool to move the plot, but Kendrick, who makes no secret of her battles with depression and bipolar disorder, hopes that her character’s situation will help to lift the stigma of therapy and mental illness in the black community. CONTINUED »
