Black People

Did you have the misfortune of growing up in a suburb where the only black people you ever saw were on "The Cosby Show"? Have you always felt a little bit insecure because you never learned the words to any song by The Roots or KRS ONE? Do you feel inadequate because your big brother or sister failed to teach you how to freestyle rap or break dance? Never fear. A new book out called "How to Be Black" is here to help you brush up on your blackness, or even acquire new skills.

WASHINGTON - For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years. In the photo, Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president's hair. The image has struck so many White House aides and visitors that, by popular demand, it stays put while others come and go. As a candidate and as president, Obama...

With black unemployment reaching historic levels, banks laying off tens of thousands and law school graduates waiting tables, why aren't more African-Americans looking toward science, technology, engineering and math — the still-hiring careers known as STEM? The answer turns out to be a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics — and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and science are all about. The percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade.

NEW YORK - More than a million black people were not accounted for in the 1940 Census, an undercount that had ramifications at the time on the political map and the distribution of federal resources, according to records released April 2 by the National Archives after a 72-year confidentiality period lapsed. The undercount also had an impact on the Census Bureau itself, the agency said, leading to efforts that continue to this day as it counts people every decade, to assess how well it managed to count people and to determine what could be done to improve.

BOSTON — For years, Michael Curry has heard this joke from African-Americans living in the South: No matter how bad things are for black people here, at least we don’t live in Boston. Despite Boston’s deep liberal ties and abolitionist past, many African-Americans still view Massachusetts and its largest city as a hostile place for people of color. It’s a charge that stings, said the Boston-born Curry, a 42-year-old attorney. It’s a past he is vowing to tackle as the new president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored...

Did Mitt Romney miss his "Sister Souljah moment?" The debate erupted recently when Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown Law student, who spoke publicly in favor of President Obama's contraception policy, a "slut" and a "prostitute" who is "having so much sex, it's amazing she can still walk. " Romney's response - "It's not the language I would have used" - struck some inside and outside his party as woefully inadequate. Yet, none of the Republican presidential candidates denounced the conservative talk radio host.

Randall Lee Gibson, an urbane, Yale-educated Confederate general, mocked black people as “the most degraded of all races of men.’’ Later, as a US senator from Louisiana, he helped broker the end of Reconstruction, freeing the South to harass and lynch blacks virtually at will. In the 20th century, his orphaned son, Preston, was raised by an aunt and her husband, who had been a justice on the US Supreme Court that legitimated racial segregation in the infamous case of Plessy v. Ferguson.

It had all the makings of a feel-good hockey moment — except the guy who scored the goal was black. Soon after Joel Ward eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins on Wednesday with a Game 7 overtime goal for the Washington Capitals, Twitter erupted in a shower of n-words and other racial insults. "Go play basketball, hockey is a white sport," "4th line black trash" and "white power" were some of the nicer phrases tweeted by angry Boston fans. One said that the fact that a black player scored "makes this loss hurt a lot more.

I thought my son would be much older before I had to tell him about the Black Male Code. He's only 12, still sleeping with stuffed animals, still afraid of the dark. But after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, I needed to explain to my child that soon people might be afraid of him. We were in the car on the way to school when a story about Martin came on the radio. "The guy who killed him should get arrested. The dead guy was unarmed!" my son said after hearing that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman had claimed self-defense in the shooting in...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A white Colorado second-grade student who wore black face paint as part of a Martin Luther King costume has drawn criticism from school officials. Sean King was pulled out of class Wednesday after donning the makeup for a project requiring students to dress up as a historical figure. The Colorado Springs boy said he was trying to honor the slain civil rights leader. His parents knew about his costume and came to watch the presentations. School officials "thought it was inappropriate and would be disrespectful to black...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A white Colorado second-grade student who wore black face paint as part of a Martin Luther King costume has drawn criticism from school officials. Sean King was pulled out of class Wednesday after donning the makeup for a project requiring students to dress up as a historical figure. The Colorado Springs boy said he was trying to honor the slain civil rights leader. His parents knew about his costume and came to watch the presentations. School officials "thought it was inappropriate and would be disrespectful to black people, but I say that it's not, I...

Thanks to Yvonne Abraham for her column "A reminder of how far we've come on race — and yet must go" (Page A1, April 29). However, though she writes that "it's easy to forget how much worse it once was," I would differ. For some of us, it's impossible to forget. Every time I go by certain landmarks in Boston, the memories come flooding back, and the pain is just as great. Every time my guard is down and someone calls me the n-word (usually coupled with the b-word), the anger returns.

WHO David Banner WHAT The Grammy-winning rapper and producer will speak at The LA Riots: Twenty Years Later conference at Harvard University on Friday and Saturday. Banner, along with keynote speaker Patricia Williams, a law professor at Columbia University, and other scholars and artists, will look at issues of inequality and discuss events such as the Trayvon Martin case and Occupy Wall Street. Q. Were you at an age where you could understand what the Rodney King riots were?

When civil rights activist Ray Robinson arrived at Wounded Knee in April 1973 to stand alongside Native Americans in their fight against social injustice, he excitedly called his wife back home in Alabama and told her, "This could be the spark that lights the prairie fire. " "No, it's not. Come home. Please come home," his wife, Cheryl Buswell-Robinson, recalled begging of him. The black activist and follower of Martin Luther King Jr. never made it home to Bogue Chitto, Ala. He was declared dead, but his body was never found and little is known about what happened.

It had all the makings of a feel-good hockey moment — except the guy who scored the goal was black. Soon after Joel Ward eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins on Wednesday with a Game 7 overtime goal for the Washington Capitals, Twitter erupted in a shower of n-words and other racial insults. "Go play basketball, hockey is a white sport," "4th line black trash" and "white power" were some of the nicer phrases tweeted by angry Boston fans. One said that the fact that a black player scored "makes this loss hurt a lot more.

TULSA, Okla. - Late Thursday afternoon, Jacob C. England, 19, posted a message on his Facebook page, expressing grief and anger over the second anniversary of his father's death. England's father, Carl, was shot on April 5, 2010, at an apartment complex here, and the man who was a person of interest in the case, Pernell Jefferson, is serving time at an Oklahoma state prison. England is a Native American who has also described himself as white. Jefferson is black. "Today is two years that my dad has been gone," England wrote, and then used a...

As an almost 60-year-old black man, leader of a civil rights organization in Boston, and an amateur black historian, I felt compelled to write regarding Mark Feeney's commentary on Cab Calloway ("PBS documentary sells Cab a little short," g, Feb. 25). It was an EXCELLENT analysis of a man who, depending on whom you talk to, was either loved or hated. The 1930s and '40s was a really difficult time for black people in general and black entertainers in particular. Many of these entertainers of that time had to look white or act white in order to secure broad acceptance.

Rush Limbaugh's comments about a female law student who testified in favor of President Obama's contraception policy have played a role in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Some analysts say Mitt Romney missed his chance to more forcefully repudiate Limbaugh's attacks in recent days, and that this could reverberate in the general election if he gets the GOP nod. But this is not the first time that comments made by individuals not necessarily related to a candidate have affected national campaigns.

Police believe the same attacker or attackers are behind a series of early-morning shootings in which three people were killed and two others were critically wounded within a three-mile span of north Tulsa. Homicide detective Sgt. Dave Walker said investigators don't have the results of forensic tests yet, but police think the early Friday morning shootings are linked because they happened around the same time in the same general area and all five victims were out walking when they were shot.

I thought my son would be much older before I had to tell him about the Black Male Code. He's only 12, still sleeping with stuffed animals, still afraid of the dark. But after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, I needed to explain to my child that soon people might be afraid of him. We were in the car on the way to school when a story about Martin came on the radio. "The guy who killed him should get arrested. The dead guy was unarmed!" my son said after hearing that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman had claimed self-defense in the shooting in Sanford, Fla. ...