Articles
The Gentleman Boxer
Well-educated, well-off, from a good family . . . what makes Tor Hamer fight?
So far, the knockout blow to boxing hasn’t landed, but, like a punch-drunk fighter in the last round of a long bout, the “sweet science” is hemorrhaging badly after uppercuts from competitors like mixed martial arts; disinterest from a public increasingly turned off to the thought of brain damage as a public spectacle; and decades of its own corruption.
Why would anyone with half a brain—and a desire to keep it intact—have any interest in joining a waning enterprise like boxing? [read more...]
Watching the V.P. Debate with Young, Black, Palin-Proud Republicans
Watching the chronic winker with her outnumbered, seemingly unlikely supporters
The young black Republicans had arranged, at the Voice’s request, to meet at SideBar near Union Square to watch the vice-presidential debate last week, but there was a problem.
“They’re having some sort of Obama party here,” said James Davermann, a financial analyst for Bloomberg. Actually, it looked like several different Obama parties had showed up and were now clustered around different televisions. Davermann and his friends were going to be seriously outnumbered. [read more...]
Baby-Mama Drama and Deadbeat Dads
Cathy Middleton has become black radio’s favorite expert on child support
During a recent 15-minute segment on Power 105’s Ed Lover Morning Show, Cathy Middleton fields calls coming in on the jammed switchboard.
“She’s our most popular guest outside of celebrity artists that come to the show,” Jennifer Romero, a screener handling the calls says about Middleton, who is also a regular guest of Wendy Williams at WBLS and Michael Baisden on his syndicated show.
A woman named Melissa calls in to the show with a typical question: “My baby’s father owes arrears,” she says, “but I don’t want to collect them because he has been doing really well in paying child support.” [read more...]
On the Campaign Trail With MTV Semi-Celeb Kevin Powell
The former Real World star tries to shed his violent rep and enter the real world of politics
Here’s why I shouldn’t be writing this article. Twice, I was fired by Kevin Powell, the semi-celebrity who first rose to prominence as a member of MTV’s first season of The Real World
I worked for him as a personal assistant while I was still in college, and after first laying me off and bringing me back, he axed me because I was taking too long to transcribe an interview with Chris Rock.
I bore him no ill will. He hadn’t treated me badly, and I certainly hadn’t seen the kind of behavior he had exhibited earlier in his life—which promises to make his current gig of trying to unseat longtime Brooklyn congressman Ed Towns an uphill slog. [read more...]
Black Models Take Off
Video shoot cashes racial catwalk
Last month, photographer Steven Meisel used only black models for an entire issue of the Italian edition of Vogue, and it became something of a landmark publishing event: Copies sold so quickly that Condé Nast had to stock the stores with reprint runs. But as remarkable as the reaction to the magazine was, observers wonder whether it will have any lasting effect on the industry—one in which black models often have a difficult time getting onto the runway or in the pages of magazines.
Before the Vogue buzz dies down, however, Ryan Leslie is giving some of the women from the special issue more work. [read more...]
A Murder Invisible
A young woman dies at the hands of her boyfriend—no, not the one you heard about
A week after Michael Cordero allegedly strangled his estranged girlfriend, Boitumela “Tumi” McCallum, in her mother’s NYU faculty apartment, an 18-year-old woman named Mabelyn Arriola encountered a similar fate in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx. On August 9, she was found stabbed to death in a stairwell. But at the same time that McCallum’s death was front-page news, Arriola’s was relegated to the digest pages. McCallum was a strikingly beautiful, accomplished young woman seemingly on the verge of greatness. Arriola was also attractive, except for the scar left on her cheek after her boyfriend, Lander Jones, 26, had bitten her during a brutal attack months earlier. Not fortunate enough to be the daughter of an NYU professor, Arriola was nearly invisible, though her fate, like McCallum’s, had seemed almost inevitable to many of the people around her. [read more...]
Girls to Men
Young lesbians in Brooklyn find that a thug’s life gets them more women
At the Lab, a Brooklyn nightclub and rental hall, a petite Hispanic bartender sporting braids down the middle of her back and a baseball cap is taking a break on a recent Friday night. Then she spots something in the crowd and leaps onto the bar. She sees another woman dressed in boyish hip-hop gear hitting on her femme girlfriend on the crowded dance floor. The bartender jumps to the floor, pushes her way past dancers, and grabs her woman by the arms. After giving her a rough, disapproving shake, she drags her quarry back to the bar, where the girlfriend will remain standing in silence the rest of the night.
“It’s a property thing,” explains Siya, who, like the bartender, looks like she’s walked out of a rap video. Among the 15 tattoos that adorn her beige complexion are a large Bed-Stuy on her forearm and Brooklyn on the back of one hand. She’s 20. [read more...]
Deep South of Houston: Is a Soul-Food Restaurant Too Black for Soho?
Lola, a soul-food restaurant that featured live rhythm-and-blues acts, attracts a largely black clientele, and also went by the name Lola Is Soul, decided in 2004, for business reasons, to move from Chelsea to Soho. But once they got there, the owners—a biracial couple—ran into surprisingly stiff opposition from the Soho Alliance, a community group that has opposed Lola’s liquor license and its legal petition to have live entertainment at its new location.
Cries of racism have, not surprisingly, been leveled by Lola’s supporters. But Don Clark MacPherson, a longtime resident of the neighborhood and a member of the Soho Alliance—as well as the publisher of the Soho Journal—says that the accusations of racism are unfounded. Lola, he tells theVoice, just moved to Soho at a bad time: Frustrated by the large number of nightclubs already in the area, the alliance saw in Lola simply one liquor license too many. “Race in this issue is a red herring,” he says. “I don’t think that the type of music had anything to do with it. The objection started before anyone heard about the type of music Lola played.” [read more...]
Shooting Star
Taking aim at Remy Ma
Remy Ma—the new Remy, the one who’s ditched the two-tone hairdo that was her trademark so that she presents a more intelligent, grown-up image to the world—leaves a restaurant, and it’s immediately apparent that her new look isn’t working.
“That’s Remy Ma!” a teenage girl says to her friend in disbelief.
The friend responds with a nudge: “Follow her!”
“Hell, no! She just shot her friend!” the first onlooker says, staying right where she is. [read more...]
Back to Africa
Harlem condos offer African roots, and not everyone is happy about it
The Kalahari, a luxury “green” condo currently under construction on Harlem’s 116th street, is trying to fit in with the locals instead of sticking out like a sore thumb. The developers’ solution: a sub-Saharan motif. The exterior of the building is designed to evoke the tribal art of the Ndebele tribe of South Africa. Inside, the apartments come with recycled bamboo floors and a solar heating system. The co-developers of the $120 million Kalahari, Walter Edwards and Carlton Brown, chose African art and imagery to give the locals a sense of their heritage. “We’re trying to wake up people and give them some self-pride,” says Edwards. “I’ve been in Harlem since 1947. I’m well known in the community and this project has been received with nothing but positivity.” [read more...]
For Some Black Parents, the New Home Room is Home
Public schools are failing black boys, say a growing number of parents who are homeschooling
Say “homeschooling” and what tends to come to mind are the whitest people you know, holding Sunday school every day of the week in their basements, producing kids who can declaim against Charles Darwin for hours on end, but who are so screwed up socially that you can’t imagine them getting a date, except years later as part of a group outing to Christian Day at Disney World.
So, with that admittedly over-broad stereotype in mind, it’s something of a shock to see the lessons in progress at Bread Stuy, a small café in Brooklyn, where customers sip at their coffee and read newspapers, unaware that a woman named P. Aurora Robinson is holding a homeschooling class in their midst. [read more...]
Xenu Goes Uptown
Scientology makes a major move into Harlem. But why?
Recently, the Church of Scientology announced that it was purchasing three buildings on East 125th Street for an estimated $10 million. Since 2003, the controversial religion had been running a mostly overlooked storefront on Third Avenue between 122nd and 123rd streets, but the new expansion marks a major move into Harlem. The buildings will be fully renovated and turned into not only a church, but a community center with the usual Scientology programs: job training, literacy and drug rehab. Media reports about the announcement, however, failed to ask a key question: What’s the mostly white Church of Scientology doing in a mostly black part of town? [read more...]
The Fabolous Life
Hanging with a rapper who has close ties to his home. Maybe too close
In Harlem, it’s Dipset—the short handle for Cam’ron and Jim Jones’s group, the Diplomats. Staten Island, on the other hand, is Wu-Tang territory. The Marcy Projects claim Jay-Z. And 10 years after his death, Bed-Stuy is still the home of Biggie.New York’s neighborhoods have a powerful hold on their rappers, and Bed-Stuy’s Brevoort Projects are no different: home to John Jackson, a/k/a Fabolous. But in his case, it’s been hard to shake the notion that his connection to home is a little too strong.
Fabolous, who first rose to prominence with the single “Can’t Deny It” from his 2001 debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, promotes his ties to the projects with constant references to his “Street Family.” The name is used as a reference to both his entourage and his independent record label, and it also graces merchandise—namely gold necklaces that bear “SF” pendants. [read more...]
‘Ayo, shorty!’
Brooklyn girls are fighting back against the boys who harass them
Even a poster declaring “Street Harassment is a Crime!” in bold letters didn’t deter a group of guys standing on a Brooklyn corner from ogling 17-year-old LaTosha Belton. She was wearing knee-length shorts, a tank top, a short-sleeved sweater and she was carrying a stack of anti–sexual harassment posters.
“Read this!” she challenged, responding to their hisses and come-ons.
“What? I can’t tell you, you look nice?” one man asked puzzled.
“What does this say?” she asked while pointing to the poster. “You are harassing me and I don’t like it.” [read more...]
Hot Ghetto BET
Does a black television network have a responsibility to do better?
“Welcome back to Hot Ghetto Mess” says Charlie Murphy, as the comic and brother of Eddie launches another segment of what may be the most masterful example of bullshitting on television today. Murphy deserves some sort of award for the (mostly) straight face he keeps as he tells his audience that the video clips we’re about to see contain some kind of uplifting, educational message. To reinforce his point, the comedian is wearing something resembling a smoking jacket on a set that’s supposed to evoke a drawing room, or at least someone’s idea of an environment of “class.” Murphy, in other words, is in a place outside the ‘hood, or perhaps above it, looking down. [read more...]
Sharing in the Gory
Already a pariah, Kenneth Eng goes even lower
Back in February, Kenneth Eng made news for writing a column titled “Why I Hate Blacks” in the Bay Area–based newspaper AsianWeek. Not a stunt—Eng apparently really did hate black people (and whites, and even other Asians, according to other of his writings). Embarrassed by the publicity, AsianWeek fired Eng and published a front-page apology.
But Eng is far more bent on destruction—or just plain bent—than anyone realized. [read more...]
Meet the Harlem Artist With Good Promotion, Sales— and Down Syndrome
Haile King Rubie’s paintings are lovely. Considering the subject matter (stick figures, balloons, simplistically rendered buildings), the lines, and the rich use of color, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the artist is a precociously talented grade-schooler. Some of it is moving, some of it isn’t. But this third-grader, you might think, has a big future ahead of him.
Rubie, however, isn’t a child in grade school. He’s actually 17 years old and living with Down syndrome. It’s inspiring that he loves to paint and that his parents encourage him so much.
But is a Rubie painting really worth $1,200? [read more...]
