Hi-fi spheres, bacon toasters, translated Pravda on demand, and other changes to come in 1975 A.D. [ via Bostworld ]
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

Jeremiah Wright in context.
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

If you thought phone phreaking was a dying art, you may be surprised to read the story of "Li'l Hacker", as told by old-school hack/phreaker Kevin Poulsen.
posted on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why, invisibility cloaks, of course!
posted on Feb 20, 2008 - View this thread

Godspeed You! Black Emperor officially calls it quits, citing the Iraq war as a primary catalyst. "The last American tour that Godspeed did was in the run up to the current war in Iraq. For what Godspeed did, it was very difficult for us to work out a way for us to communicate directly with the audience about what was going on." Umm...yeah. So who's to fill their giant post-rock shoes? Well, most of the members have moved on to other projects, most notably Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band (among others). That's not to mention the slew of next generation bands that have culled GY!BE as a primary influence to get your fix: Sparrows Swarm and Sing, Sweek, The Seven Mile Journey, or johnnytwentythree, just to name a few.
posted on Feb 12, 2008 - View this thread

African-American Snapshots & Portraits (page is slow to load) (previously) (via).
posted on Feb 4, 2008 - View this thread

FillCell is a sort of graffiti wall of mini-posters drawn with very simple tools (to impressive effect, in some cases). Flash - drag the background to see more of the wall.
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - View this thread

In 1910 African-Americans owned 16-19 million acres of land in the United States, much of it rural farmland. Today, that figure has dropped to less than 8 million acres overall, and less than 2 million farm acres. What happened? In some cases, violence— whites would forcibly take farmland, a homestead, or a home from the black residents, who were often powerless to fight back in the face of systemic racism, threats of retaliation, and the 'enforcement' of the thefts by the Ku Klux Klan. More perniciously, many of these losses were the result of forced partition land sales. Many legal scholars and activists today are working to reverse the trend. [some pdfs]
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - View this thread

Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, the Black Panther Party's Minister of Culture from 1967 to 1979. Douglas is still alive and making posters for the cause, in this case the San Francisco 8, who were arrested earlier this year for the murder of a police officer in 1971 -- despite the fact that evidence was thrown out of federal court in 1976 because "officers stripped the men, blindfolded them, beat them and covered them in blankets soaked in boiling water," and "used electric prods on their genitals." The SF Weekly published a detailed 5-page story about the case in November 2006.
posted on Dec 14, 2007 - View this thread

"Newman's prediction that I am gone for life, to be buggered by American criminals, will not come to pass," said Lord Black.

NewsFilter: American criminals pleasantly surprised.
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - View this thread

If even most African-Americans believe the black poor are primarily responsible for their own plight, does that make it true?
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
posted on Nov 13, 2007 - View this thread

"I am on a near-daily treasure hunt of sorts. I scour our American past to help understand modern breastfeeding..." The Black Breastfeeding Blog, with photographs and history.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

A history of the Black Mass in pictures (NSFW)
posted on Nov 6, 2007 - View this thread

Socially conscious rap and hip hop may be making a comeback, but it seems to be doing so at the expense of stereotyping and bigotry. Videos like Read a Book (hilarious) and Serve Below Zero may be intended to send a “good” message to the black community, but it’s hard to ignore blatant racist undertones (or overtones) in the lyrics and images.
posted on Sep 17, 2007 - View this thread

Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi was born on 1926 in Hamburg and grew up in Nazi-Germany. He dreamed of joining the Hitler youth but besides best efforts was always rejected. But you can see him here wearing a swastika.
posted on Sep 9, 2007 - View this thread

Welcome to The Wieners Circle, a Chicago hot dog stand where you can stumble in after a night at the bar and trade some colorful banter from the staff (along with your chocolate milkshake). But a local tradition that was "supposed to be fun" often cuts a little too close for the black employees in the predominantly white Lincoln Park establishment. [NSFW]
posted on Aug 28, 2007 - View this thread

A post and comment thread on BlackProf (a blog run by leading black law professors) regarding Obama fielding a question as to the "homophobia problem in the Black community" [see third video down]
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

"A Girl Like Me." 1947. Dr. Kenneth Clark conducts his "Doll Test." Dolls identical except for color were shown to black children at Scott's Branch Elementary School. His findings were published in 1950. According to his testimony during Brown v. Board of Education (1954), "Eleven of these sixteen children chose the brown doll as the doll which looked 'bad.'" 2007. 18-year old Kiri Davis wins CosmoGIRL's Take Action Hollywood film contest with her documentary short from 2006, "A Girl Like Me." (YouTube) In the film (produced with help from Reel Work Teen Filmmaking), she recreates Clark's "Doll Test" and finds: "Fifteen of the twenty-one children preferred the white doll." Sixty years on, and we've still so far to go. (via MyUrbanReport and Drifting Through The Grift)
posted on Jul 25, 2007 - View this thread

Harlem's commercial and cultural backbone, 125th Street, has been gentrifying fast; many of its Black-owned businesses have been forced out by high rents and replaced by branches of white-owned national chain stores. The street's best-known cultural centers remain (notably the Apollo Theater and the Studio Museum in Harlem), but now, its oldest surviving Black-owned store, The Record Shack, is facing eviction. Owner Shikulu Shange, along with other Harlem residents, will lead a town meeting next week to discuss strategies for keeping Black economic development alive in Harlem and in NYC (as of the 2000 U.S. Census, NYC's five boroughs were home to more than 98,000 of about 129,000 Black-owned businesses in all of New York State).
posted on Jul 7, 2007 - View this thread

Harlem Variety Revue. Pre-rock & roll TV show featuring swing from Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, and Sarah Vaughan. Rhythm & blues from Amos Milburn, Ruth Brown, Joe Turner, Martha Davis and Larry Darnell. Jazz & calypso from Nat Cole. Ballad by Dinah Washington. Doo wop from The Clovers. Harmony from the Larks and the Delta Rhythm Boys (complete with exciting choreography). Comedy provided by Nipsey Russell & Mantan Moreland, tapdancing by Coles & Atkins and Bill Bailey (check out that 1955 Moonwalk at the end!) Hosted by Willie Bryant.
posted on Jun 16, 2007 - View this thread

rsspect and AfroSpear -- both bringing more Black voices of the blogosphere to our attention. Rsspect is a growing collection of feeds, and AfroSpear a group blog. The loss of Steve Gilliard of the NewsBlog this week has caused many to rightly question why more minority voices aren't as visible or prominent online.
posted on Jun 3, 2007 - View this thread

"So take that to your next rain dance and STFU" vs. "YOU GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED..." Emails between a gay black man and a Native American army recruiter. Copy of the email exchange here. (Quote at the bottom format, so read from the last page up.)
posted on Mar 26, 2007 - View this thread

Sambo's Restaurant It turns out that many people enjoyed Sambo's restaurants back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but apparently the real tale of Sambo and the tigers eventually became so infused with racist overtones that it overwhelmed the dining chain and essentially brought it down. The chain was named, incidentally, after the two men who opened the first restaurant: Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett.
posted on Mar 7, 2007 - View this thread

The New York Times on Being Black and Indie You're an African American, but you prefer Bloc Party to 50 Cent. Fear not, young "blipster," you're no longer the only black guy at the indie rock show! [via]
posted on Jan 28, 2007 - View this thread

"My Shtick? Being Black." You probably know Jordan Carlos from his role on The Colbert Report. Like me, you may not have known he didn't actually work there: "'Saturday Night Live' has no black writers. 'The Daily Show' also doesn't have any, and neither does 'The Colbert Report,' a show on which I've played Stephen Colbert's black friend 'Alan,' a member of the staff. That's right. 'The Colbert Report' had to hire an actor to play a black person who works on the show." (via Oliver Willis)
posted on Jan 8, 2007 - View this thread

The Rise Of Bullshit In The Black Community [YouTube, NSFW] Author/humorist Sabrina Lamb tackles "the epidemic of bullshit sweeping the black community" in a new book.
posted on Dec 26, 2006 - View this thread

Steppin' is an hour-long documentary on an African-American dance tradition, most closely associated with historically black fraternities and sororities (though it's also found in high schools, clubs, and professional dance companies). Combining footwork, hand-clapping, chanting, singing, use of props, and changing configurations of dancers, it's a tightly coordinated dance form in which teams vie for honors in competitions nationwide.
posted on Dec 7, 2006 - View this thread

Five Blind Boys Of Alabama - Too Close
Supreme Angels - Hush Hush
Soul Stirrers - Listen To The Angels Sing
King Louis Narcisse - This Little Light Of Mine
Goldia Hayes with the Harmonizing Four - Beams of Heaven
Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Choir - Up Above My Head
Hall Johnson Choir - Little Black Sheep
Norfleet Brothers - I Am A Pilgrim And A Stranger
Caravans - No Coward Soldier
Soul Stirrers - I'm A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord
Gospel Paraders - Have You Got Good Religion
Pilgrim Jubilee Singers - Testify
Imperial Gospel Singers - The Lord Will see You Through
Lucy Rodgers Singers - Hold To God's Unchanging Hand

YouTube in the Holy Spirit--mostly old school black gospel...
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - View this thread

Black Vodka. Perfect for Halloween! (A separate search yielded direct links to mixing and drink tips.) The coloring is from the Indian/Burmese catechu, a wood extract, but it won't stain. After doing a little research, it seems UK company Blavod merged with US Extreme Beverages, maker of Red Bull. So... is it a novelty, or niche filler? Reviews seem pretty favorable. I'll be picking up a botle for my Halloween party.
posted on Oct 3, 2006 - View this thread

Currie Ballard, a historian in Oklahoma, has just made what he calls “the find of a lifetime”—33 cans of motion picture film dating from the 1920s that reveal the daily lives of some remarkably successful black communities.

Most. Expensive. Cellphone. Evar. (It's Jaren Goh Design's $300,000USD "Black Diamond" phone.)
posted on Jul 25, 2006 - View this thread

2%. (bugmenot login fleeb@fleeble.com, password fleeble) That is the percentage of students in UCLA's incoming freshman class that self-identify as black. Only 96 students in an entering class of 4,852, and the lowest percentage since 1973. Many believe Proposition 209 is to blame, but some want to stop collecting this data altogether.
posted on Jun 8, 2006 - View this thread

Black , the final entry in Adidas' Adicolor short film campaign., is seriously messed up, with a fish and a panda playing russian roulette. Also featuring Pink, Red, Blue, White, and Yellow. (via)
posted on May 12, 2006 - View this thread

No More Black and White. An article in the Washington Post about a census report released today shows that 45 percent of children under 5 are racial or ethnic minorities, with Hispanics the largest group. Interestingly enough, as Andrew Sullivan notes, among the under-5 population only 4% are black, a trend he's seen in the time he's lived in Washington D.C. ("It's only gotten whiter and browner.") This has happened/is happening perhaps most dramatically in New Orleans (previously).
posted on May 10, 2006 - View this thread

Autum Ashante is a racist.
posted on Mar 29, 2006 - View this thread

Yellow Fever On why white girls won't date Asian guys.
posted on Mar 12, 2006 - View this thread

Twilight for Black Farms. An interesting topic at NPR. Photos. Audio. Essay.
posted on Feb 24, 2006 - View this thread

Drugs on the Rez. It's a hell of a life going from utter poverty, where your mom gets you drunk so you'll stop complaining about being hungry, to being able to buy your kids toys with $100 accessories and sending them to private schools, to going back to literally not having a quarter to call your dad. In this case, the money came from Canadian oxycontin. It's not just Native Americans who are targeted by the authorities. It's also Indians. There's a pretty good newish book on the subject of black markets, Illicit. Laos' opium market is apparently gone -- in favor of meth and Afghanistan's market is black in name only, so why keep up the facade?
posted on Feb 20, 2006 - View this thread

Niger Val Dub King of Scotland. One of 100 Great Black Britons. There were some surprises here for me. I didn't expect to find St. George the patron saint of England or Queen Victoria's grandmother here.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

The art of black and white photography is not dead, but more and more developers / films are left by the wayside. And then someone comes along, and makes a database of 1500+ combinations of developers and black and white films. If the combination isn't in the database, it uses a series of formulae to calculate a likely developing time.
posted on Oct 17, 2005 - View this thread

Constance Baker Motley, civil rights lawyer and federal judge, is dead at age 84. (NYT; bugmenot). She was a brilliant lawyer in the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund when it was led by Thurgood Marshall, winning anti-segregationist legal victories against Alabama Governor George Wallace and many others, and defending the civil rights movement. A New Yorker, she was a state senator and borough president of Manhattan. In 1966, Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and she became the first black woman federal judge in the United States. Speeches, writings and clippings.
posted on Sep 29, 2005 - View this thread

How I Became a Black American "I became a black American long before I acquired American citizenship. . . . I was not eager, upon my arrival to the United States, to assert a black American identity. My parents had taught me "better" than that. But I became a black American anyway. Before I freely embraced that identity it was ascribed to me. This ascription is part of a broader social practice wherein all of us are made intelligible via racial categorization."
posted on May 20, 2005 - View this thread

Otis Granville Clark is a wonder. At 102, the former butler of Joan Crawford - who served Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin - still drives, lives on his own and twice a week attends church in his home city of Tulsa, Oklahoma... Today his blue eyes have gone milky but they still sparkle, his wiry frame remains agile, and his most painful memories are still fresh - even after 83 years. Coiled on the edge of an understuffed sofa, Clark leans back and screws his eyes tight to summon up "that day". It remains the most vivid of his life... Historians call the firestorm that convulsed Tulsa from the evening of May 31 into the afternoon of June 1 the single worst event in the history of American race relations. To most Tulsans it is simply "the riot". But the carnage had nothing in common with the mass protests of Chicago, Detroit and Newark in the 1960s or the urban violence that laid siege to Los Angeles in 1992 after the white police officers who assaulted Rodney King were acquitted. The 1921 Tulsa race riot owes its name to an older American tradition, to the days when white mobs, with the consent of local authorities, dared to rid themselves of their black neighbours. The endeavour was an opportunity "to run the Negro out of Tulsa". Burnt Offerings
.See also The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 or the tale of the lost city or another The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. See also Frequently Asked Questions from the Tulsa Reparations Coalition. Previous post by allaboutgeorge re: Tulsa Race Riot Reparations on March 1, 2001 .
posted on Feb 22, 2005 - View this thread

It was 125 years ago today that the story of the Black Donnellys reached its horrible end. This dark chapter of Canadian history is a cross between Little House on the Prairie and an angry mob, complete with ghost stories and punk rock.
posted on Feb 4, 2005 - View this thread

The 'Acting White' Myth. When smart black kids try hard and do well, they are picked on by their less successful peers for 'acting white.' But it isn't true.
posted on Dec 12, 2004 - View this thread

Black British Style at the V&A. Now with Create-a-tag!
posted on Nov 15, 2004 - View this thread

Tragedy! Now at half price!

I think Lewis Black was right when he suggested that the last stage of grief isn't acceptance, but exploitation.

(And here's how to contact the outfit responsible.)
posted on Sep 15, 2004 - View this thread

The Slack Album The Slack Album is the latest (for the next ten minutes) in a slew of Jay-Z Black Album remixes and mash-ups. In this case, the Black Album is melded track-for-track with samples taken from Pavement's 1991 lo-fi / indie classic Slanted and Enchanted.
posted on Apr 29, 2004 - View this thread

African-American == Black? Several high-school students at a predominantly white (well, predominantly NOT black) Nebraska high school were disciplined for a campaign to get 16-year-old student Trevor Richards awarded the school's annual "Distinguished African-American Student" award. Richards is from South Africa, now lives in America (not sure if he's a citizen, the CNN story isn't clear), but here's the catch: he's white.
posted on Jan 23, 2004 - View this thread