This Week In Blackness

One of the six girls who was suspended from her Arizona high school for spelling out the N-word with their shirts after being part of a larger senior class photo has publicly apologized:

“I have come here to say that I am incredibly, incredibly sorry,” she said according to AZ Family. “I have love for everyone in my heart. I am not a racist and I’m asking everyone for forgiveness.”

The girls also explained that they took the picture because one of the girl’s boyfriends is black, and that was who the picture was intended for. Well, that makes everything just fine and non-racisty then!

Team Blackness also discussed the Houston grand jury who indicted the videographer behind the fake Planned Parenthood videos, the Delaware House apologizes for slavery, and Obama bans solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons.

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She’s Not Racist But…Post + Comments (13)

In what should surprise no one, Stacey Dash–best known for her role in the movie Clueless and these days known for her ignorant conservative soundbites–had some eye-opening things to say about the lack of diversity at the Oscars and holidays in general:

“We have to make up our minds,” she said. “Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the (NAACP) Image Awards where you’re only awarded if you’re black. … “Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. You know?” she said. “We’re Americans. Period. That’s it.”

Doocy then asked if she meant there “shouldn’t be a Black History Month because there isn’t a white history month?”

“Exactly. Exactly,” she responded.

Yeesh.

Team Blackness also discussed Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holzclaw’s 263 year prison sentence, actress Julie Delpy’s apology, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ taking on Bernie Sanders and the liberal imagination.

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Stacey Dash Is Indeed ClueluessPost + Comments (20)

For the second year in a row, there has not been a single Oscar nomination for people of color in any of the four acting categories. Last year there was backlash. This year, Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith have called for a boycott. But not everyone agrees with that line of reasoning, such as Janet Hubert, best known as playing “Aunt Viv” on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air:

Hubert uploaded a grainy, four-minute video in which she addressed Pinkett Smith as “Miss Thing,” then accused her of boycotting the Oscars because Pinkett Smith’s superstar husband, Will Smith, wasn’t nominated by the academy for his role in Concussion. It went downhill from there, with Hubert adding, more or less, that the Smiths’ concern about the Oscars is frivolous in the face of greater injustices against Americans of African descent, and calling the Smiths “a part of the system that is unfair to other actors.”

Team Blackness also discussed our big plans for what to watch instead of this year’s Oscars and comments by Alveda King, MLK’s niece, on Fox News about the “war on police.”

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Aunt Viv Weighs In On The OscarsPost + Comments (19)

Another murder of a Sikh-American man in Fresno, California–the second in as many weeks–shows a wave of violence against Sikhs and Muslims which has grown more intense after the Paris and San Bernadino attacks. During the first attack, which took place December 27:

[Amir Singh] Bal’s assailants reportedly broke the his collarbone in the process of the December assault, yelling racial slurs and asking, “Why are you here?” Three months prior, on Sept. 10, a 53-year-old Sikh American cab driver named Inderjit Singh Mukker was viciously beaten and called a “terrorist” and “Bin Laden” by a teenager in Darien, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Both incidents have a lengthy and troubling precedent. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, hate crimes against Muslims and people misidentified as Muslims in the U.S. have risen from an average of 20-30 per year to 100-150, as Mic has previously reported.

And Sikhs aren’t even Muslim. So way to do your research before you commit a hate crime.

Team Blackness also discussed Bernie Sanders’ money trail, Al Jazeera America’s swan song, and the link between the Charleston church shooting and Louisiana theater gunman.

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The Power of HatePost + Comments (6)

It was with a heavy heart that we watched Obama’s last State of the Union. And like always, he managed to spin a tale of optimism and hope while also calling out his critics:

“As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background,” Obama said, voicing a familiar critique of Democrats and some Republicans at the rhetoric of the billionaire real estate mogul whose populist campaign has taken American politics by storm. “We can’t afford to go down that path. It won’t deliver the economy we want, or the security we want, but most of all, it contradicts everything that makes us the envy of the world.”

Team Blackness discussed the ups, the downs, and why we’ll miss our 44th president.

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Obama’s State of the UnionPost + Comments (3)

Maine Governor Paul LePage has found himself in hot water for some racially charged comments he made at a townhall meeting on Wednesday night:

“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage told a large crowd. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”

He later clarified, after lots of outrage, that he meant “Maine women” not “white women.” Well, that just fixes everything.

Team Blackness also discussed babies, an Alabama chief justice’s attempt to block judges from granting same-sex marriage licenses, and Satan.

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D-Money, Smoothie, And Shifty Are Impregnating White Women In MainePost + Comments (19)

It wasn’t Obama’s announcement that he was taking executive action to expand background checks and gun safety measures that infuriated conservatives, it was the fact that he had emotions. And according to the hosts of Fox’s Outnumbered, the emotions weren’t even real:

Andrea Tantaros said that she didn’t buy the emotion because “he would have spoken out a long time ago.”

“This is how many years? Almost eight years, he’s almost at the end of his term,” she continued. “And you haven’t heard him go to Chicago and really speak out about this issue. So, I would check that podium for like a raw onion or some No More Tears,” Tantaros quipped. “It’s not really believable.

Keep it classy, Fox. And let’s remember, we’ve never seen Republicans get emotional *cough* Boehner *cough*.

Team Blackness also discussed more developments in the Cosby case and the Oregon standoff and a new game called Block Lives Matter.

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According to Fox News, Obama Sheds Crocodile TearsPost + Comments (12)