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

W.Va. Woman Speaks About Torture Ordeal By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER – 1 day ago CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. That's why she tagged along with a woman she hardly knew, up a remote southern West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture. "But there wasn't no party," Williams said. "I realized I'd made a bad mistake." For at least a ...More

Dead Like Me Groups To Host "Lie-In" At War Memorial Plaza To Draw Attention To Murder Epidemic By: Anna Ditkoff Kimberly Haven, executive director of Justice Maryland, a criminal-justice advocacy organization, was wrapping up an interview with an out-of-state reporter recently when he asked her about the city's perceived lack of outrage over the city's out-of-control homicide rate. Haven really gave the issue some thought. "There is outrage," she said. "It's just not a ...More

Man, 24, loses 82-year-old wife An 82-year-old Argentine woman who attracted media attention last month when she married a 24-year-old man has died as a result of heart problems. Adelfa Volpes was admitted to hospital soon after she and her new husband, Reinaldo Waveqche, returned from their honeymoon in Brazil. She died in a sanatorium in Santa Fe, the city where the couple were married. [SNIP] Their love is said to have blossomed when Mr ...More

If anything this blog has shown me it is how much I really enjoy reading up on current events, social issues and writing about them. This is something that keeps me up into the wee hours of the morning. Why? Because I love it. Am I getting paid for it? Not yet. As a child, I loved to write stories and plays. There were times I would listen to a song ...More

Kathy Holland, 50, a black woman, was killed in a double homicide with Leonard Pina in a drive-by shooting at 1038 W. 42nd Street just west of Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles at about 3:55 a.m. Friday, Oct. 19. She was shot repeatedly in the abdomen, and died at California Hospital at 6:07 a.m., nearly two hours after Pina died. LAPD South Bureau detectives said that Holland and Pina were ...More

You hear me? Someone is going to run with this! Comedian Paul Mooney tear this up. Kenyan Monkeys Make Lewd Gestures at Women (foxnews.com) Who's a cheeky monkey? Kenyan officials are not sure how to handle a troop of rude monkeys that's been making lewd gestures at women, London's Daily Telegraph reports. "Can the [tourism] minister deploy game rangers ... to deal with the monkey menace?" pleaded local representative Paul Muite in Kenya's national parliament ...More

This is one of those topics that will always pop up about every 13 months or so (I propose the creation of a Black discussion calender where never dying issues like light skin/dark skin, interracial marriage, Kwanzaa and the usage of the N-word can be plainly laid out--because you know the conversation is coming.) Anyway, here is what has been going on at the Rio Vista Elementary School in San ...More

Right now I am sitting at a library in the OC hanging on a WiFi signal waiting for my kids to get out of school. Here is the link to the show. [Link] The issues were good, the conversation had some spice, there was a mutual respect for each other...just like I like it :). One thing I just noticed, we discussed three topics and only one of them is on this ...More

Last evening I took some time to look at the latest LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) school board meeting. Based on the programing grid I was turning on Curious George for my daughter. Instead I was greeted by a young Black male who was lecturing the school board for being too harsh on young Black kids when issuing out school suspensions (A topic I just wrote about last week). ...More

Mike on his new blog "The Checkup" writes-- "Despite being a proud graduate of an HBCU myself, I can’t help but feel conflicted about some of these issues. On the one hand, HBCUs serve as important pipelines to all sorts of professions, and it is a fact that they are responsible for a large portion of the black professional workforce. They also serve as important centers for cultural affirmation in a ...More

Fortunately, my family and I live at a safe distance (for now) from the many fires here in Southern California. Although the Cleveland National forrest is just behind our community, there is a huge firebreak between us and the forest. From time to time it does get very smoky (because we live South of Los Angeles, the Santa Ana winds have been blowing the smoke you may have seen on ...More

I am scheduled to appear on National Public Radio's show News and Notes hosted by Farai Chideya on this Wednesday. I will be joined by the following bloggers: Gina McCauley of http://whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com/ Wayne Bennett of http://field-negro.blogspot.com/ You will have to check with your local listings as far as time of broadcast goes. The show will be available via audio stream after the broadcast (I will provide a link on this site when it ...More

Question: Even if America was a racist nation, why in 2007 would the powers that be keep Blacks from doing a job where they are paid to run into burning buildings with no guarantee of survival? Apparently there are folks out there who still believe that the grand conspiracy to wipe out Black Americans is to keep us away from jobs that would speed up the process. Take for example, this ...More