Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn a woman's constitutional right to an abortion is expected to have a disproportionate impact on Black women and other women of color, who have traditionally faced overwhelming costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive healthcare, experts said. The reversal of Roe v Wade leaves the decision of whether or not an abortion is legal in the hands of state governments. While some states have recently reaffirmed the right to an abortion, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion in most or all circumstances. More Black women live in...

For Abbaro, dating in the Black community has still had its challenges. She remembers a hurtful incident from her college days. “I was talking to this Black guy [and he said], ‘Just so you know, I don’t date Black women. Black women are whack and I only date white girls,’” she recalls. Black women are often exoticized and fetishized. Being discriminated against can have major impacts on Black women’s mental and emotional health, as well as on their dating habits. In Murphy’s case, that early experience left a major mark on her psyche. “I mentally prepared myself for the rejection...

Countless news reports during the past year have bemoaned the increasing hostility people are expressing towards each other in their everyday interactions. We have seen this lack of civility and respect come to a boil locally as well, especially towards Black women. This past week, Chicago Teacher’s Union President Jesse Sharkey said Mayor Lori Lightfoot was “relentlessly stupid” in her positions during negotiations of the dispute between the Chicago Public Schools and CTU. We see this at the national level too. No vice president in American history has endured more ferocious criticism than Vice President Kamala Harris. President Biden has...

Valerie Rupert raised her right arm, slightly shaking and unsure as she aimed at the paper target representing a burglar, a robber or even a rapist. The 67-year-old Detroit grandmother squeezed the trigger, the echo of her shot blending into the chorus of other blasts by other women off the small gun range walls. “I was a little nervous, but after I shot a couple of times, I enjoyed it,” said Rupert, among 1,000 or so mostly Black women taking part in free weekend gun safety and shooting lessons at two Detroit-area ranges. Black women like Rupert increasingly are considering...

A woman who defected from North Korea and came to the US says she was mugged by three black women outside a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Chicago last year but was prevented from calling the police by white bystanders because doing so was ‘racist.’ Yeonmi Park, the Columbia University student who along with her mother was sold into slavery by human traffickers after fleeing North Korea when she was just 13, alleges the incident took place during last summer’s looting in the Windy City. Park alleged that police and prosecutors declined to charge the thief, but public records indicate...

A North Korean defector claims she was mugged by three black women outside Chicago’s Saks Fifth Avenue store last year – but white bystanders accused her of being racist when she tried to call police. Yeonmi Park, 27, told Joe Rogan’s podcast that she was robbed of her wallet near the department store on Michigan Avenue during a wave of looting across the city last summer. Park – who has been outspoken on ‘woke’ culture – claims she grabbed hold of one of the women and was trying to call police but bystanders intervened. She claims about 20 people, many...

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Tuesday that he’s compiling a list of Black women that could be potential nominees to the Supreme Court. “We are putting together a list of a group of African American women who are qualified and have the experience to be in the court,” Biden said during a press conference in Delaware. “I am not going to release that until we go further down the line of vetting them as well.” President Trump and the Republicans have been pressuring Biden to release a list of judges he’s considering as potential Supreme Court nominees. Trump released...

After black women delivered some notable advances for Democrats during last year’s midterm elections, they have emerged as a key voting bloc going into the 2020 presidential race.

A woman who resigned as Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax's policy director in the days after two women accused him of sexual assault said on Thursday that she felt "brainwashed, betrayed and retraumatized" by the way he has handled the allegations against him. At a Rally Against Rape event in Arlington's Gateway Park Thursday night, Adele McClure spoke for nearly 20 minutes. Her talk was streamed live on Facebook. She recounted how she was sexually assaulted at age 16 by someone she barely knew. Then she "moved on and buried it deep," she said. "I have not thought about that, or...

Democratic National Committee chief Tom Perez on Wednesday hailed black women voters as being the "backbone" of the party.

WASHINGTON — On the first crisp fall day in Washington, thousands of anti-racism marchers proved that the capital’s summer of protests had not yet come to a close. Two separate rallies — the March for Racial Justice and the March for Black Women — converged in Lincoln Park, a picnic-and-birthday-party plot nestled in the heart of the gentrified eastern part of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. They marched in front of the Justice Department before descending on the National Mall to denounce institutionalized racism.

Black women serving in the United States Army are cheering revised regulations that permit hair locks, ending what critics said were years of scrutiny and confusing enforcement of rules about their appearance.

Lady Liberty will be depicted as a black women on a coin -- the first time in the nation’s history Lady Liberty has not been a white woman -- the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday. The coin, worth about $100 face value, is part of a commemorative series to honor the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Mint. “The 2017 American Liberty 225th Anniversary Gold Coin is the first in a series of 24-karat gold coins that will feature designs which depict an allegorical Liberty in a variety of contemporary forms-including designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Indian-Americans among others-to reflect...

The leadership of the Democratic Party, at the highest levels, has consisted of mostly White men and women and a handful of Latinos. What Democratic leadership in the United States Congress, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) doesn’t have — and has never had — is a representative from its most loyal voting bloc over the last three presidential elections: Black women. To say that all quarters of Democratic Party leadership is in need of change is a vast understatement. The numbers don’t lie. The Democratic Party has lost a historic number of seats across...

Darren Rutledge missed his opportunity to vote for the first African-American president. He was in prison. Today, Rutledge, his smile flecked with gold, works trimming beards at Incredible Creations Beauty and Barber shop here in downtown Cincinnati. With Hillary Clinton on the presidential ballot in Ohio, Rutledge is eager to have his chance to make a statement with his vote. Rutledge is African-American, part of a demographic coalition that flocked to Obama but has been somewhat less enthralled with Clinton. Crucially, his very participation in the election process is owed to a black woman: His sister, an employee at Cincinnati City...

A massive fight that broke out inside an Illinois Walmart ended with a woman having her clothes ripped off. The all-out brawl occurred inside the store in Crestwood, south of Chicago, and was all captured on video by a witness. The fracas involved four women and was attempted to be stopped by a single male security guard, who got lost in the fight. A woman at the center of the brawl had her top pulled down in the melee, exposing her breasts.

An attorney was removed from court and taken into custody after a judge declared her in contempt for refusing to take off a Black Lives Matter pin. Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Robert Milich said Attorney Andrea Burton was in contempt of court for refusing to remove the pin in his courtroom as instructed. Burton was sentenced to five days in jail, but she has been released on a stay while an appeal is underway. Burton will stay out of jail during the appeals process as long as she obeys Milich’s order not to wear items that make a political statement...

Most Americans believe there’s a lot at stake in the 2016 presidential election—but none more than Black women. According to a new poll reported in the Washington Post, nearly three-quarters of African-American women are “strongly” afraid of the consequences of their candidate losing the election. The Gallup poll found that 72 percent of Black women, who are by far Hillary Clinton supporters, fear a Donald Trump presidency. White women (at 56 percent) and Black men (at 55 percent) are a distant second and third, among those who strongly fear their candidate losing. What explains the high level of anxiety for...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not just black men having difficult relations with police. Black women are having a tough time, too. Consider the schoolgirl who was slammed to the floor in a South Carolina classroom and the mysterious death of Sandra Bland inside a Texas jail cell. Videos showing black women being manhandled by police are bringing such problems to the forefront at a time when the public has focused largely on the relationship between black men and law enforcement.

At the 2010 Academy Awards, Mo'Nique wore white gardenias in her hair — just as Hattie McDaniel had in 1940 when she became the first African-American actress to win an Oscar. The Precious star later thanked McDaniel in her best supporting actress acceptance speech "for enduring all that she had to, so that I would not have to." As The Hollywood Reporter recognizes the 75th anniversary of McDaniel's historic win, we speak at length with Mo'Nique about her debt to her movie-star idol, her memories of her own Oscar night and the dramatic turn her career has taken in...