HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Google Maps / Google A white Georgia high school principal is under fire after being caught on camera using the n-word while trying to explain the harm of racial slurs to a white student. He apparently didn’t realize the student was recording him, but that’s only a legitimate excuse if you’re of the opinion that racial slurs are OK so long as they aren’t documented. (If a racist drops the n-word in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a bigoted sound? HELL YES, IT DOES! TF?) According to NBC News, Jeff Cheney, the principal of East Forsyth High School in Gainesville, was reprimanding the white student in front of two other staff members, according to a statement by Forsyth County Schools. Apparently, the white student had called him a “crack...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Ben Rothstein / Rings of Power Racism has somehow found its way into Middle Earth, home to Elves, Orcs, and other mythical creatures. The original cast members from the Lord of The Ring trilogy have banded together to call for inclusivity following racist backlash to the new Rings of Power Prime Video series. Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan, the stars of Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of The Rings films, hopped on social media to show support for the diverse casting in the new Prime Video LOTR series, Rings of Power. While disappointing but not surprising, some butt-hurt nerds felt the need to complain about the fictional creatures of Middle-Earth having melanin because they feel it goes against the original source material. In a tweet, Woods ...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: ABC 15 News / ABC 15 News It is the year of our Lord, 2022, and folks are still out here pretending they don’t know the racist history of Black people being referred to as monkeys. And some of these folks have the nerve to call themselves educators. Shanda Wiggins, the mother of a student at the Oakbrook Middle School in Dorchester County, South Carolina, told ABC 15 News her eighth-grade son came home from school upset that his teacher allegedly referred to a Black teacher in a neighboring classroom as “the monkey next door.” During a meeting with administrators, the unidentified teacher admitted to calling the Black teacher a monkey, but she said she meant it in an endearing, totally-not-racist way. “I guess she feels that because that’s her friend she ...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Dan Reynolds Photography / Getty A funny thing can happen to a business once it has been accused publicly of racism—suddenly all said business’ dirty-and-discriminatory laundry starts coming out as other patrons start publicly recalling their own experiences. Such appears to be the case for Houston’s Restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, where a Black police officer and high school principal said they were humiliated by a server who accused them of smelling like marijuana. From Raw Story: “I don’t plan on patronizing this establishment anymore,” said Marcus Mosby. “She said, ‘There’s a strong odor of marijuana coming from your party in this area.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, we don’t smoke marijuana. You’re mistaken.’ She said, ‘I’ve gotten complaints. People have called...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: SOPA Images / Getty A San Francisco man who threatened a family wearing Black Lives Matter shirts in a restaurant was given a jail sentence of 60 days for his actions. According to reports, Steven L. Cibotti was sentenced to 60 days in prison for committing a felony hate crime by means of felony threat by threatening to shoot the multiracial family who had entered the restaurant he was dining at. The San Mateo County District Attorney’s office also stated that Cibotti was given a suspended sentence of two years of supervised probation along with 120 hours of public service. He was also ordered to abstain from alcohol or any other controlled substances including marijuana and received a no-contact order with the victims in addition to being barred fro...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: BisFitty / Reddit A Black man revealed online that in response to having to attend his workplace’s retreat that was held at a plantation, he opted to arrive dressed up as an enslaved person. According to the employee, his decision was prompted by his job’s clueless decision. “As a lot of you already know, I had to attend a ‘corporate retreat’ this weekend, that happened to take place on a southern plantation in Alabama. There was a ‘period appropriate’ costume ball scheduled for the end of the trip, but they apparently forgot about me, their lone black employee. Hilarity ensued,” the man known as BisFitty on Reddit wrote. The situation apparently occurred seven years ago, according to the original post thread on that platform. The situation went viral wit...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Dania Maxwell / Getty The rabbit hole is still rabbit hole-ing for Sesame Street-based theme park Sesame Place as it has once again been accused of racial discrimination against Black children. But this time a Sesame Splacelocation in Baltimore is in the hot seat—and this time a lawsuit has been filed. In fact, a Baltimore family is suing for a whopping $25 million alleging that multiple park employees ignored a five-year-old Black girl during a meet-and-greet event last month. From the Baltimore Sun: Related Stories The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed in a federal court in Philadelphia against SeaWorld Parks, the owner of the Sesame Place, for “pervasive and appalling race discrimination.” The lawsuit alleges that four employees dressed ...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: ABC 13 / abc 13 A Black family that just moved into a neighborhood in the Houston, Texas area has gone public with the evidence that they are the targets of racist threats. According to reports, a woman named Erika (who gave only her first name for fear of violence against her) moved into the Woodland Hills Subdivision in Kingwood, a neighborhood in the northeast section of Houston, Texas with a roommate and her 12-year-old daughter. A week after they arrived, a note was left on their front doorstep. “Very nasty. ‘Color of your skin. [Expletive], get out of here. You don’t belong here, get out of our neighborhood,’” she said to ABC13 reporter Shelley Childers. A second note was left at her door the next day. “Go to sleep. Wake up. There’s another no...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Dania Maxwell / Getty A video of a performer at the Sesame Place amusement park blatantly ignoring two Black girls has sparked outrage online, with others sharing their own as the park fumbled an apology attempt. On Sunday (July 17th), digital consultant Leslie Mac shared a video of a four-year-old Black girl named Paige and her friend watching the parade of performers dressed as characters from the beloved children’s show. A performer dressed as Rosita walked up, giving high-fives and saying hello to other children at the parade. As they approached Paige and her friend who had their arms outstretched for a hug, the Rosita character visibly waved them off with a “no” gesture and walks past. The original poster of the video was Paige’s mother, who reposted...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Bettmann / Getty A memoir written by the woman who was at the center of the murder of Emmett Till has surfaced. The discovery, coupled with news of an unserved warrant from that time has raised calls to reopen the case. According to NewsOne, an unnamed source provided a copy of a 100-page memoir from Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who made the false accusation against 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till in Mississippi in 1955. Her claim led to the boy’s abduction, savage beating, and lynching. Till’s grotesquely disfigured face was published in JET Magazine, spurring many to mobilize within the Black community and serving as a flashpoint for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The document, entitled “I Am More Than A Wolf Whistle”, was apparentl...
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Spencer Platt / Getty Three accused white supremacists have been arrested and charged with leaving more than 100 messages of hate on the properties of residents in the small and overwhelmingly (93 percent) white town of Hornell, New York. Unsurprisingly, the first report of their literal hate mail campaign came from a predominately Black church. From the New York Times: A worshiper arriving for services at Rehoboth Deliverance Ministries — a largely Black church in the mostly white city of around 8,500 about an hour south of Rochester — found a leaflet affixed to the door, the police chief, T.J. Murray, said in an interview on Tuesday. On it were the words “Aryan National Army” and an image of a skull inside a swastika, he said. By the time the weekend wa...
It took her a while, but Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman is finally ready to face the criticism about her sitcom’s lack of diversity. In an attempt to “course-correct,” Kauffman has donated $4 million to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to establish an endowed professorship in the school’s African and African American studies department. Brandeis’ African and African American studies department was established in 1969 and is one of the oldest such departments in the country. The Marta F. Kauffman ’78 Professorship in African and African American Studies will help the department recruit more students and teachers, as well as support one distinguished scholar in the program. Friends has long been criticized for featuring almost zero people of color in the show, whic...