It's never happened to me when I'm shopping by myself; I guess I have a pretty innocuous look about me. But add my 6'3 boyfriend to the equation, and its not unlikely for us to be followed around stores like we have "thief" tattooed on our foreheads. Years ago, a video store clerk trailed closely behind us for several minutes as we walked along the new releases wall until I finally turned around and half-yelled, "What do you want?" He said that he was just making himself available in case we had a question. I told him we wouldn't be needing help, and he followed us anyway. We left without renting anything. The boyfriend, who is a lawyer, is always telling me to calm down; that I get too worked up over these things. It's because he's used to it. But the fact that he's used to it bothers me even more — it happens to him that often. Just by virtue of being big and black and a man, his shopping experience is different than mine. But not all women can say the same about their individual experiences.

CONTINUED »

The latest, two-part installment of CNN's Black in America series premieres tonight with a special on "The Black Woman & Family." Tomorrow's selection is "The Black Man. Both of these strike me as pretty lofty topics to take on in a few hours.

I've noticed that most people in the black blogosphere have little more than disdain for this series and are expecting the worst, perhaps because there is no singular "black in America" experience. Will you watch? If you're reading this after the special aired, what did you think?

• Damon Dash and Rachel Roy just signed a $4 billion licensing deal for Roy's clothing line. This should put to end those Dame-Dash-is-bankrupt rumors. [NR]

• This is sort of preaching to the choir, but still. The war sucks. [JJP]

• Want to learn about the black family? CNN'll school ya. [CL]

• More on R. Kelly's pervy past. [SOHH]

• True, Chris Brown is younger than Rihanna. But she doesn't like them this young. [SR]

Alicia Keys submitted an opinion piece for CNN in advance of the July 4th premiere of her documentary, Alicia in Africa, about her travels to the continent and her work there to fight the spread of AIDS.

My first visit to Africa completely changed my world view. I came to understand that AIDS was not simply a deadly disease but a force capable of orphaning children, uprooting communities and stifling economic progress.

What AIDS could not do was suffocate the hope of the remarkable people I met throughout Africa. If people who had suffered such unthinkable devastation could maintain hope, then I could certainly hope for an end to this pandemic in my lifetime.

With this goal in mind, [AIDS activist Leigh Blake] and I started Keep A Child Alive in 2003 and our clinic and orphan sites operate in six countries, supporting approximately 45,000 children and their families who have been victimized by AIDS.

Suddenly, black people and race issues are all television news producers can think about. No one needs to think too hard about it to figure out why this is, but it's fascinating to see the effort the networks are putting into understanding and reporting on "the black experience." NBC Nightly News received some praise and some harsh criticism for their brief-but-ultimately-well-meaning series on African American women late last year.

CNN will launch a four-month-long on-air and online series called CNN Presents: Black in America tonight with Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination, a two-hour documentary commemorating the 40th anniversary of MLK's death. Two more documentaries, one about black women and the other about black men, will air in July.

CNN has developed a delegate "game" that allows you to manipulate the delegates in states that haven't voted yet to see how the numbers will have to break down for your candidate to win (or lose). Die hard Hillary fans can even make it so she gets all the delegates for the remaining states. It won't be real, but it might buoy your spirits.

Tyra Banks has a nice look of calmness and serenity about her when barely legal male pop stars aren't whipping her up into a hormonal frenzy, doesn't she? Ever the do-gooder, Tyra Banks attended last night's gala in honor of CNN's "real heroes," ordinary people — read: not Angelina Jolie or Bill Clinton — who do extraordinary things to help others. Read about them and see more pics from the event after the jump.

CONTINUED »

Quote of the Week
Essence editor Tatsha Robinson on why black women can relate to Hillary Clinton:

ROBERTSON: Even though she's Hillary Clinton, they see themselves, you know, within her, dealing with the family issues, the infidelity issues.

[CNN's CHRIS] LAWRENCE: Robertson says Clinton's ultimate embarrassment is her greatest asset.

ROBERTSON: She decided, you know, whether she wanted to stay or not, and I really think, you know, people respect that about Hillary Clinton, especially black women.

Last night was CNN's experimental YouTube debate, during which candidates sat through requests like, "say something nice about the candidate next to you," serious environmental queries posed by a sock puppet snowman, and the ubiquitous "do you represent your minority well enough" question (see above). I haven't gotten a chance to view the whole thing (Youtube has all the questions and answers here), but since Elisabeth Hasslebeck said on The View this morning that she thought Barack Obama "won", I will have to assume that Sen. Clinton must have done the best job.

Talking heads who are female or black are apparently only knowledgeable about two things — women and blacks. At least, those are the only two topics cable news shows call on them to discuss. Watchdog group Media Matters studied news show guests on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN before, during, and after the height of the Imus controversy and found that a blacks were only invited to speak in significant numbers about the Imus controversy and other minorities and women were rarely seen at all. I wish I could have contacted Media Matters during the study to let them know that appearances by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, the go-to black experts of cable news, should not have been counted. Remove them from the study, and I bet the already dismal numbers decrease by half.

[MM]