President Obama Talks The “N-Word”

President Obama spoke with Marc Maron in an exclusive podcast interview about his thoughts of the N-word.

Check a snippet of the interview below. Originally posted in The Washington Post.


Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock famously use it to deliver searing commentaries through comedy about our nation’s contradictions. And in a podcast interview with Marc Maron, President Obama used the N-word to make point about the nature of racism in the nation he was twice elected to lead.

Maron: You’ve gotten an amazing amount of stuff done and in a time, in the last year you got some big stuff done in time when a lot of people didn’t think you’d get done. And now this horrible thing happens on Wednesday and you have these police actions in Baltimore and Ferguson. I mean, where are we, coming from where you came from and trying to define yourself, in terms of the African American community, in terms of racial relations, where are we with that in terms of when you came in in your mind ?

Obama: Well, first of all, I always tell young people, in particular, do not say that nothing has changed when it comes to race in America, unless you’ve lived through being a black man in the 1950s or ’60s or ’70s. It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours. And that opportunities have opened up and that attitudes have changed. That is a fact.

Maron: Yeah.

Obama: What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives — you know, that casts a long shadow. And that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it.

Maron: Racism.

Obama: Racism. We are not cured of it.

Maron: Clearly.

Obama: And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200-300 years prior.

So what I tried to describe in the Selma speech that I gave, commemorating the march there, was, again, a notion that progress is real, and we have to take hope from that progress. But what is also real is that the march isn’t over, and the work is not yet completed. And then our job is to try in very concrete ways to figure out, what more can we do?”

What the president was getting at is lost only on those obtuse enough to focus solely on his use of the N-word. Or those who want to use the chatter he stirred up to focus on the continued use of the N-word by African Americans themselves. That’s a related, but completely different debate.

Read the entire article here

New Zealand’s Largest Gang: Mighty Mongrel Mob

 In the 1960s, a gang of variously disaffected youth sprang up in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

They didn’t ride bikes, but they quickly developed all the trimmings of an outlaw motorcycle club: patches, club colors, and a fiercely violent process of initiation.   They came to be known as the Mighty Mongrel Mob and today they’re the largest gang in the country, with around 30 chapters across both islands. Media access to the Mob is rare, which is why this photo series by Jono Rotman is kind of a big deal.

Jono, who is a Wellington born photographer now living in NYC, cut his teeth capturing New Zealand’s prisons and psychiatric wards, before he took on gang life in 2007.

Read More on Vice

Jury Watches Sex Tape Posted Online Of Rapper Rick Ross’ Baby Mother Allegedly By Rapper 50 Cent

NY DAILY NEWS — A screen shot from the sex tape of Lastonia Leviston that 50 Cent is accused of distributing illegally. Jurors in the lawsuit against 50 Cent watched the video during court proceedings. Photo: This is 50/Straight From the A

A Manhattan jury sat stone faced but clearly uncomfortable Friday when forced to watch a graphic 13-minute sex tape that 50 Cent is accused of posting on the Internet.
“That’s your b—h, n—-,” Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson says in a voice overlay as he narrated the private film that features rival Rick Ross’ former girlfriend, Lastonia Leviston, and her then-boyfriend Maurice Murray.

Leviston has sued Jackson in Manhattan Supreme Court claiming she did not give him permission to publish the tape and he violated her right to privacy and inflicted emotional harm as a result.

Leviston, 36, left the large paneled courtroom with her aunt as the tape was about to be shown.

In the film, Leviston starts wearing lace panties, a silk short wrap and very high heels. Murray is in a T-shirt and short white socks.

While the rest of their clothes come off, the couple never loses their footware.

50 Cent as “Pimpin’ Curly” Photo: This is 50

The Queens-born rapper appears on the tape in his role as “Pimpin’ Curly” in a curly wig and a high-pitched voice. However, Jackson narrates the film in such detail like a baseball broadcaster and so fast that he added a text subtitles so viewers could clearly catch all the times he taunted Ross.

Leviston and Ross broke up in 2004. The tape was made in 2008. But Jackson’s narrative suggests they’re still a couple when the tape was made and Leviston is cheating on Ross.

“Tia (the mother of another Ross baby) told me Ricky got a little d–k,” Pimpin’ Curly cackles.

Throughout the 13-minute film, the young jury forewoman mostly kept her head buried in her notes as she scribbled furiously.

A middle aged juror mostly looked distressed and wiped her eye at one point. The sixth juror sat with her arms crossed and her body pivoted away from the big screen.

The jury is composed of four women and two men, the latter a retired supervisor from the city Human Resources Administration and a college professor who teaches art.

Leviston who lives in Florida is due to take the stand next week. It’s unclear when Jackson will testify.