Kirsten West Savali
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Nielsen Study Shows African Americans Watch Most Television

A report released on Wednesday reveals that African Americans have the highest rate of total TV usage among all ethnicities in the United States.

According to the Nielsen State of the Media, which analyzed data compiled from November 2010, the U.S. average for television viewing is 5 hours, 11 minutes, with Asians watching TV an average of 3 hours, 14 minutes daily. On the higher end of that average, is the African-American community, watching television for an astronomical 7 hours, 12 minutes each day.

Reportedly, African Americans also play video games more than white, Hispanic or Asian Americans, which is higher than the national average.

Sifting through the disheartening statistics, one thing is crystal clear: Black people watch too much TV.

Obviously, not the best news, but how does that translate into a negative impact on the African-American community? According to a study done by Haejung Paik and George Comstock, there is a "positive and significant correlation between television violence and aggressive behavior."

Continue reading Nielson Study Says too Much TV: So?

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Spring Break.

As innocent a phrase as that may sound, for millions of college students around the world Spring Break is a rite of passage that involves heavy drinking, nonstop parties and random hook-ups. Now, imagine all that debauchery times 10, and you have Freak-Nik in Atlanta, Ga.

Freak-Nik, named after the hit song 'Super Freak' by Rick James, began as a small picnic sponsored by the DC Metro Club at Spelman College in 1982. It soon morphed into a hyper-sexed, violent den of frantic college hormones... on steroids.

Not only did an estimated 300,000 college students descend upon Atlanta at the height of the event's popularity, but the fringe characters that frequently lurk around the Atlanta University Center were able to achieve anonymity in a crowd where you didn't have to know anyone's major or extracurricular activities to have a "good time."

Freak-Nik soon became the crème de la crème for collegiate debauchery and remained so until after the 1996 Olympics, when Atlanta officials took aggressive steps toward erasing Freak-Nik from the city's cultural landscape. Even still, for several more years, Freak-Nik refused to die.

Finally, in 1999, it moved to Daytona Beach, Fla., and was the end of an era.

In 2010, there was a renewed interest in bringing back the iconic event to Atlanta, but Mayor Kasim Reed wanted no part of it. Reed warned college students that the Atlanta Police Department would be out in full force and that no outdoor events would be permitted. He also promised to sue organizers if things spiraled out of control.

After the "Weak-Nik" of 2010, people were sure that the event would retire to its proper place in history, like Woodstock, but no such luck.

It's reportedly being revived yet again.

Continue reading Freak-Nik Coming Back to Atlanta, but Should It?

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Ann Murray, Nigger Heaven


The public school system in Broward County was thrust into the limelight earlier this month, after video surfaced of 29-year-old Ticora Daniels slapping a 7-year-old boy's hand from his mouth, because he allegedly struck her daughter on a school bus.

Now, the ignorant and racist statements of school board member Ann Murray (pictured below) will ensure that Broward County stays in the news for quite some time.

In 2007, Murray, at the time a bus terminal supervisor, told her colleagues, which included three African-American bus drivers, that she was forced to sit in "n**ger heaven" while attending a Bills game:

"Do you remember when a group of us from transportation came down to watch a Bills game, she asked fellow supervisor Lisa Spince. "Yeah, they had us up in n**er heaven. You know, way up at the top of the stadium.''

One of the bus drivers, Markeia Funchess, filed a complaint with the board's Equal Educational Opportunities Department, in spite of receiving a phony apology from Murray.

According to the Miami Herald, Funchess said Murray referred to it as the "n**ger bleed section,'' then apologized and said, "I forgot the company that I was in.''

Continue reading School Board Member Revisits 'N***er Heaven'

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Survey Finds Mixed Race is America's New Standard of Beauty; African-American Women More Confident Than White Women


African-American and white women have spend insane amounts of money to look like each other, when, according to an interesting survey by Allure Magazine, 64 percent of people think that mixed race women represent the epitome of beauty.

America has gone biracial.

What is most illuminating about this survey is that the overwhelming shift in perceptions of beauty in the last 20 years has shifted away from what are typically white characteristics -- pale skin, slender physiques, smaller breasts and hips -- to the curvy, sun-kissed beauty of multi-ethnic women.

According to the survey, 70 percent of those who wish to change their skin color wanted it to be darker, and 74 percent believe that a curvier body type is more appealing now than it has been over the past 10 years.

America's fascination with skin color is nothing new. There was a time when pale skin was required to be considered a lady because true ladies didn't expose their porcelain skin to the sun. Conversely, the dark skin of slave women were considered evidence of their inferiority and their forced time in the fields.

Now, white women spend countless hours in tanning booths across the U.S., attempting to simulate melanin. Even with plastic surgeries done to mimic the breasts and buttocks of ethnic women, according to the survey, white women are still more likely to want to change their bodies and feel less attractive than their significant others.

While there are some who may feel that the shift is purely aesthetic, I beg to differ.

In my opinion, what this shift represents is a manifestation of the oversexed perception of black women in the media, blended with the traditional definition of white women as pure and innocent.

In other words, the white represents the "lady," and the multi-ethnic represents the "freak."

Every man's dream woman, right?

Continue reading Survey Finds Mixed Race Is America's New Standard of Beauty; African-American Women More Confident Than White Women

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Family Says New Orleans Student Locked Into 'Cage' For Bad Behavior (Photo Courtesy of WDSU)

Latreshia Davis knows that her 14-year-old son, Eugene Allen, has disciplinary problems, but she doesn't think putting him in a cage is the way to solve them.

McDonogh City Park Academy allegedly begs to differ.

The eighth-grade student at the charter school in New Orleans, La., told his mother that after "getting off the lunch line," he was placed in a "cage" with other students on Tuesday, and left alone for long periods of time.

Davis is in disbelief that the Academy would lock up her son, and says it could potentially damage his self-esteem.

"This speaks in volumes to me," Davis said. "It puts things in the kids' minds saying, 'You are not worth anything or it's okay to be behind bars or locked up in a cage.' It's so many things, and it hurts my heart because I would not lock my own child in a cage, so I don't appreciate someone else doing it."

The New Orleans Charter Schools Foundation, which runs the academy, is investigating the incident, and released the following statement late Tuesday:

"It is true that the room is equipped with a mesh fence, because it was formerly used as an equipment room. At the present time, the gate to the fence is not and cannot be locked. The students were under the supervision of one of our teachers, who was present throughout the entire seven minutes that the students were in the room."

Though officials stated that the mesh fence would be removed before the room was used for those purposes again, Michael Bagot, president of New Orleans Charter Schools, remains unapologetic:

"The student was given lunch detention, but claims that he was locked in a cage are unfounded."

Continue reading Family Says New Orleans Student Locked Into 'Cage' for Bad Behavior

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When Mohammed Ali (pictured left) spotted cameraman Marcel Bailey outside of an Oxford courtroom preparing to film footage of a woman that his brother, Feizal Ali, allegedly raped, he intimidated Bailey to the point of needing counseling.

What could Ali have said to send Bailey into a mental tailspin?

He called him a "slave."

According to Bailey, who has been a cameraman with the BBC for two years, Ali stepped in front of his camera and immediately became racially abusive.

"He said I was a slave when I told him I was there to do my job," said Bailey.

"He said that I was a slave because white people saw me as a slave and I had no backbone, or something to that effect. He carried on saying stuff like black people will never be respected by white people because you have no backbone and you will always be slaves."

Continue reading Brother of Alleged Rapist Calls BBC Cameraman a 'Slave'

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Threat of Radioactive Meltdown Leads to Hydrogen Explosion in Japan, 6 Injured

In the wake of the devastating 8.9 earthquake that ravaged Japan Friday afternoon, the fears of the Japanese government and nuclear industry have been realized.

After Saturday's hydrogen explosion in Unit 1 of Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, a predicted second explosion occurred in Unit 3, injuring six workers. Citizens within a 12-mile radius were evacuated.

Continue reading Threat of Radioactive Meltdown Leads to Hydrogen Explosion in Japan, 6 Injured

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After being told by her 6-year-old daughter that a boy hit her, 29-year-old Ticora Daniels (pictured) stormed on to a Broward County, Fla., school bus and slapped the boy's hands from his mouth.

Caught on surveillance video, the visibly upset Ms. Daniels is seen saying:

"Don't touch my child. I don't give a f**k."

Continue reading Mother Storms School Bus in Florida and Slaps Child in Mouth

mike huckabee natalie portman

Mike Huckabee is officially on a roll.

At New York radio station WOR on Monday, the former governor of Arkansas and candidate in the 2008 presidential election added flames to the Birther Movement by claiming that President Barack Obama's upbringing in Kenya skewed his views of the British:

"One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, (is) very different than the average American," said Huckabee.

While he later claimed that he "mis-spoke" his thinly veiled accusation of Mauism, which is anti-colonial-or anti-white sentiment, it was a clear attempt at describing Obama as "not one of us."

His asinine statement was an echo of Newt Gingrich in 2010:

"Obama is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president."

"I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating -- none of which was true," Gingrich continues. "In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve. ... He was authentically dishonest."


Continue reading Huckabee Discusses 'Poor and Uneducated' Single Black Mothers





After Tricia Fraser took her daughter, Anissa (pictured above), to take modeling photos two years ago, she never expected to see the images again, especially not four stories high in the middle of New York's Soho District, but that's exactly what happened.


Now the Paterson, N.J., native wants an apology.

Continue reading Mom Awaiting Apology From Pro-Life Group

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