Redbone Afropuff and Black GRITS

Why Black Voters Should Be Mad at Obama (and themselves)

Miss Mariam — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:30:22 +0000

I’ve spent the past several days absorbing commentary via social media and NPR about President Obama’s views on same-sex marriage and Black voters’ reactions to it. Both anecdotal evidence and real numbers suggest that if the president wanted to retain his most devoted voting block, he made a mistake on May 10, when he told [...]

L.A. Riots 20 years later and Gen X through it all

Miss Mariam — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:00:11 +0000

At an event a few weeks ago about cross-generational workplaces, I learned that most members of any given generation are between the ages of about 10 and 15 when a national or world event that has a major impact on an entire generation hits. The event facilitators started the panel/audience discussion by listing some of [...]

The Bachelor and American Inclusion (my post on ebony.com)

Miss Mariam — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:22:26 +0000

My first post on Ebony.com went live there on April 25. It starts: The recent class action lawsuit against ABC and producers of “The Bachelor” franchise alleging the show’s producers have consistently discriminated against minorities has some bemoaning the frivolity of protesting racism in a “reality” show when countless other fights are more serious and [...]

Time for Equal Expectations

Miss Mariam — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:56:21 +0000

Tuesday, April 17, was National Equal Pay Day. Since it was also Tax Day, you may not have noticed. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, which established Equal Pay Day in 1996, April 17, 2012 represented how far into 2012 women had to work to earn what men earned in 2011. (What I [...]

Contaminating the Pulpit

Miss Mariam — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:49:17 +0000

Disclaimer: The following post is based on information that’s come down a chain. Names have been omitted to protect those who should embarrassed. Every year, several historically African American churches in Eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky, hold a community sunrise service to celebrate Resurrection Sunday morning (more commonly referred to as Easter). Congregants from every church [...]

Required Reading

Miss Mariam — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:59:45 +0000

One of the unfortunate aspects of being a print journalist is that I can’t share links in the newspaper, and (to my knowledge, since I don’t actually work there) the I.T. department doesn’t add links to the copies of articles they publish online. So, this marks a new feature in Redbone-Afropuff: When I have a [...]

WTF is going on in Arizona?

Miss Mariam — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:39:50 +0000

According to the Huffington Post and also reported in the International Business Times, Arizona state legislator Debbie Lesko has drafted a bill permitting non-religious employers to opt out of offering birth control coverage to their employees if they have a moral objection to it AND permitting those employers to ask their employees to prove they’re [...]

Deep South sexism and racism live on in Limbaugh

Miss Mariam — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:27:01 +0000

I’ve been reading At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. The book is about the Civil Rights Movement as a response to sexualized violence against African American women, and one of the go-to defenses for [...]

When man-made laws protect us from bad faith

Miss Mariam — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:00:56 +0000

Because faith is so personal, I try to avoid looking at it objectively or commenting on religions that are not my own. Additionally, I readily admit I’m not a scholar of one or of many religions. I read and study the Christian Bible because I’m a Christian and I believe my personal walk with Christ [...]

It’s about women, even when it’s about religion

Miss Mariam — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:00:57 +0000

At a hearing titled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” on Thursday, not a single witness who would have answered the question, “No,” was invited to testify. Democrats on the committee requested that, per the allowance of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., [...]