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The Pepsi Max Super Bowl Ad with the “Angry Black Woman” – Take a Look
Are we overreacting to the Pepsi Max portrayal of the “Angry Black Woman?”
Your Black Woman: Essence Dedicates Whole Issue To Obama
Essence may have scooped Vogue, sort of, in being the first women’s magazine to put Michelle Obama on its cover since the presidential election, but the Time Inc. title did so by relying on archival images. Essence’s January issue is dedicated to President-elect Barack Obama, with essays and commentary from Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, Gwen Ifill and other notable African-Americans:
Your Black News: How Black America Shaped Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama may be the pride of the South Side, but her undergraduate years at Princeton also helped shape her worldview.
A new biography, Michelle (Simon & Schuster), by Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy, delves into Obama’s years at the elite university, in particular Obama’s senior thesis, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.”
“The question of what upper-income blacks owe to the less fortunate was a major preoccupation,” Mundy writes. [...]
Her thesis found that when African Americans are at Princeton as students, they tended to identify more with their race, but after graduating, less so. Obama, now 44, pledged not to forget the black underclass [...]
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Your Black Attorneys: Trial Ongoing For Murdered 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston
Two years later, the Kathryn Johnston case is back where it started —- with the Atlanta Police Department.
The November 2006 killing of the 92-year-old woman by a rogue drug squad in her own home has been solved. Early on, federal investigators echoed suspicions of the community that such corruption was widespread. But in closing the investigation, they now say the wrongdoing was more isolated. Atlanta police last week said they were starting a task force to investigate internal wrongdoing.
Yet questions persist. Narcotics officers told investigators they cut corners, faked search warrants, planted drugs and raided homes because of pressure from superiors to make arrests. There were complaints from other officers that there were performance quotas, a charge higher-ups always denied.
But there never has been a public explanation about whether allegations about pressure from superiors were accurate, and if so, who was applying it. Also, did any higher-ups know how the drug unit operated? Or why they didn’t know?
“There were thoughts this would uncover a huge ring of corruption in the Police Department. It never did,” said William McKenney, an attorney for narcotics officer Arthur Tesler, who late last month pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with Johnston’s death [...]
Your Black News: Robert Marko Formally Charged With Murder
COLORADO SPRINGS — A Fort Carson soldier who boasted about his transformation into a killer on his MySpace page has been formally charged with 19 felony counts, including first-degree murder.
Robert Hull Marko, 21, is being held in the El Paso County jail without 
bail in the slaying of 19-year-old Judilianna “Judi” Lawrence. The body of the developmentally disabled woman was found Oct. 13 on Old Stage Road, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
The charges filed Monday included felony murder, first-degree murder and five counts of sexual assault with force and with a weapon. He also was charged with sexual assault on a child and kidnapping, according to CBI records.
After a tour of duty that ended in February, Marko was earmarked for psychological counseling because of an “overactive imagination.” He was cleared for combat before he admitted to El Paso County sheriff’s investigators that he slashed Lawrence’s throat.
From Denver Post
Your Black News: Black Woman Raped, Gagged, Blindfolded, Throat Slit
A Fort Carson soldier told police he had “rough sex” with a 19-year-old woman and then slit her throat, leaving her to die in the forest west of Colorado Springs, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by 7NEWS.
The coroner determined her cause of death as an “incised wound to the neck,” the sheriff’s department said Wednesday.
Robert Hull Marko, 21, is being held without bond on suspicion of first-degree murder and sexual assault with a deadly weapon after
police said he led them to the area of Old Stage Road where the naked body of Judilianna “Judi” Lawrence was found Monday.
Authorities had been searching for the 19-year-old woman since she was reported missing by her mother last Friday.
[...]
Investigators began questioning Marko Friday evening and he relented on Monday — his 21st birthday, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said. Marko said he met the victim on myspace.com and they met in person for the first time Friday.
That’s when Marko said he picked her up, took her to the woods for sex and then had an argument. According to the affidavit, Marko said he blindfolded Lawrence and gagged her before cutting her throat as she stood next to a tree [...]
More At Black & Missing
Your Black Life: FOX News & Greta Van Susteren Attack Gwen Ifill
FOX News’s Greta Van Susteren, who last week compared Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright to reputed Klansman David Duke, took a curious look, last night, at the folly-induced controversy brewing over legendary journalist/moderator Gwen Ifill’s status as the moderator for tonight’s V.P. debate. In a segment titled, “Fair and Balanced?” the FOX News tabloid queen went to unbelievable lengths in attacking the character, integrity and dignity of Ms. Ifill — all the while claiming to be doing otherwise. As most YBW readers are aware, FOX News is neither fair nor balanced to begin with, and when journalistic ethics are mentioned, FOX is nowhere to be found. This intentional chauvinistic and racist assault upon Gwen Ifill’s character confirms two things. First, that Black women are still subjugated to the consideration, analysis, preference and dictate of White men — a la Michelle Obama. Secondly, that the GOP is so fretful over the expectable disastrous performance by their V.P. selection tonight – Gov. Palin – and a preemptive strike against the moderator was strategically formulated to make an excuse for why Palin might not be able to answer questions in a coherent and decipherable format. Gwen Ifill, being the brilliant and elegant journalist that she is, responded in an AP interview yesterday, questioning her detractors if “they made the same assumptions about Lou Cannon (who is white) when he wrote his book about Reagan?” As one might suspect, the silence was deafening. So I say more power to Gwen Ifill, for she is the embodiment of the great legacies of fierce Black Women such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Callie House. As for FOX News and Greta Van Susteren, they only furthermore proved to be the goose which lays a thousand retarded eggs:
From Your Black Life
Your Black Life: Muslim Woman Sentenced For Refusing To Remove Hijab (Head Scarf)
Valentine violated a court policy that prohibits people from wearing any headgear in court, police said after they arrested her Tuesday.
Kelley Jackson, a spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, said state law doesn’t permit or prohibit head scarfs.
“It’s at the discretion of the judge and the sheriffs and is up to the security officers in the court house to enforce their decision,” she said.
Valentine, who recently moved to Georgia from New Haven, Conn., said the incident reminded her of stories she’d heard of the civil rights-era South [...]
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