Blackinformant.com – African-American culture, news commentary, politics

According to this writer, Republican candidates missed an opportunity during the Imus controversy. Don Imus controversy made clear the GOP party is still clueless when it comes to race and representing the kind of party that is inclusive to African-Americans and perhaps, minorities as a whole. Republican presidential candidates missed an opportunity to make political gains with a broader electorate outside of the usual hardcore conservative base. There was an opportunity for ...More

(clarionledger.com) WASHINGTON — Three weeks ago, Dawn Zimmer became a statistic. Laid off from her job assembling trucks at Freightliner's plant in Portland, Ore., she and 800 of her colleagues joined a long line of U.S. manufacturing workers who have lost jobs in recent years. A total of 3.2 million - one in six factory jobs - have disappeared since the start of 2000. Many people believe those jobs never will come ...More

(myfoxla.com) BEVERLY HILLS -- Black parents and civil rights leaders will present applications today for Beverly Hills High School's diversity program, which was modified after complaints that it benefited few black and Latino students. At an April 12 meeting with civil rights leaders, Superintendent Kari McVeigh extended the deadline 13 days to tomorrow and decided to stop considering applicants' test scores, grades, writing samples and extracurricular activities in determining who is ...More

A very interesting read! (history-magazine.com) TODAY WE DON'T always agree on the names and times of our meals. Some of us have dinner at eight, while others have supper at five. It wasn't always that way. The names of meals and their general times were once quite standard. Everyone in medieval England knew that you ate breakfast first thing in the morning, dinner in the middle of the day, and supper not ...More

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Working on an old computer with a burned-out monitor, Cuban rapper Aldo Rodriguez painstakingly lays the tracks for his next song. Sitting shirtless on the edge of his bed, tattoos up and down both arms, the 23-year-old says he's not afraid to speak his mind in the communist country run by Fidel Castro for decades. His lyrics are punchy and edgy, tackling issues that the state would ...More

(multichannel.com) Atlanta-based Black Family Channel is expected to end its run as a 24-hour channel once talks with Gospel Music Channel are finalized later this week. The two parties are negotiating a deal in which BFC will yield its 16 million subscribers to 10 million-subscriber Gospel, along with its blessings, effectively ending its run as a linear cable channel as of April 30. But BFC executives said the network will “not shut ...More

It is stories like this that I use in my case that despite some of the problems here in America, this country is by far the best option for those that live in hopeless situations. (miamiherald.com) One by one they walked in: five girls in spring flower dresses with their hair neatly braided, nine boys in black slacks and white shirts. No one noticed the children -- ages 10 to 17 ...More

Well at least they have free medical care, right? Except for this guy. (cubanet.org) HAVANA - A veteran dissident leader who wrote a book about Cuban prison conditions while behind bars was freed over the weekend after serving his entire 17-year sentence, rights groups said Monday. Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, widely known by the nickname "Antunez," was released Sunday morning from prison in the central province of Villa Clara, the opposition group Bitacora ...More

(eurweb.com) A documentary is in the works about African Americans who have made substantial contributions on Wall Street. Titled “Wall Street In the Black,” the film by Drunia M. Duvivier aims to serve as inspiration for a generation of black youth. “I was inspired by the extraordinary African American men and women I encountered," Duvivier, who began her career at Morgan Stanley, told Black Enterprise. "I realized it was an important ...More

That is what I am calling the latest campaign organized by both the NAACP and the HSAN to bleep out certain words within hip hop music when they are broadcasted on the airwaves. (read what I just said again and let that sink in) What happens when someone purchases the album? Or how about the "uncensored" video? (tvweek.com) Upset about the way African Americans and especially women are portrayed in music and ...More

As promised here is the very first blackinformant.com podcast. This is an interview that I had last week with mortgage industry expert Christopher Cruise (click here for related post that features his bio). Show notes and link will also appear under the "Podcasts" link in the above menu (for some of you it may be hard to see--to the right of "FAQs"--I will try to fix that) later today. All ...More

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The number of overweight people in Europe is rising and there is an especially worrying trend of increasing childhood obesity and in the number of people who are grossly obese, according to recent studies. Europe is facing major health and social burdens and the rise in obesity is reaching "epidemic" proportions, the 15th European Congress on Obesity in Budapest was told on Sunday. Estimates show there are around 1.1 ...More

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin criticized the cleanliness of Philadelphia after a visit to the city last week. On Sunday, he apologized for his remarks. "Let me tell you something. You ought to go to Philly and you will appreciate how clean New Orleans is," Nagin said Saturday to a crowd of New Orleans residents concerned about the city's recovery from Hurricane Katrina. "Just go and walk around Philly ...More