The Snob Quoted This Month In Ms. Magazine

Guess which story I was interviewed for? Durr. Beyonce. It's always Beyonce.

Point #1: I like how Ms. found one of the most conservative photos ever of King Bey. It's like a photo from the time she got bored and decided to enter and win the Miss America beauty pageant.

Point #2: That headline is missing a question mark as in the interview with author Janell Hobson we were debating if Beyonce's actions and lyrics could be considered feminist. VERDICT IS STILL OUT!

Check the magazine out on newsstands this spring and summer.

I'm also quoted this week in an article about black people and mental illness on The Root, written by mi amiga Keli Goff. Check that out as well here.

Where In America Was The Snob This February?

A round-up of what I've did, what I'm doing and where I've been this month so far! (Image via CCTV)

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The Root: On Jesse Jackson, Jr., Bipolar and Money

Jesse Jackson Jr. (Official portrait from Congress)In a post for The Root, I write about former House Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. and how being bipolar both does and doesn't play a role in the kind of decision making that lead to Jackson's downfall. In it, I also write about my own failures in judgment, also often related to money when it comes to the disease. We don't choose this disease, it chooses us. Ultimately, the only thing we have any control over is if this pain will be self-inflicted or if we'll wear out our welcome in the world, putting it on others.

This story is about when we take it out on others, or in this case, our wallets.

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Poor Black Kids Need To Learn To Read, Use Diigo Sez White Dude In Forbes

Hey! It's one of those articles someone writes to get attention! Tech business writer Gene Marks wrote for Forbes about what he would do if he were a poor black kid to survive. The advice can be easily summed up as -- be good in school even if your school is a nightmare; use the Internet even if you can't afford a computer and don't live near a library where you can get free access to one; Skype -- I guess if that hobo gets off that library computer you took the cross town bus to get to doesn't hog it forever; get on that hot new Diigo thing and the Cliff Notes; and become a Google Scholar. Quite a bit of the advice is hinging on Internet access which ... ahem ... is still a bit out of reach if you're using your money for things like "not starving" and "electricity."

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The Root 100: Awards and Goodbyes (Photos)

Photo by Jada PratherThe Snob attended The Root's first ever live awards ceremony for their The Root 100 list. Published last month, The Root 100 honored and ranked influential African Americans. Among the award recipients in attendance were writer Adam Serwer of Mother Jones, Baratunde Thurston of The Onion and Jack & Jill Politics (author of new book "How to Be Black"), Beverly Bond of BET's Black Girls Rock, news producer Jamil Smith of The Rachel Maddow Show, political analyst Jammal Simmons, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, Charles Blow of The New York Times and Suzanne Malveaux of CNN and many more.

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Black Students Targeted For Suspensions More Often Than Whites

Photo via US Dept. of EducationIn today's latest depressing, but not surprising news, The Root is reporting on a new study that reveals that black students are routinely given suspensions and harsher punishments than white students for similar offenses. The National Education Policy Center study found that school suspensions for non-white students have gone up by 100 percent since 1970. As a product of integrated, suburban schools in St. Louis County, I'd have to say, "No joke."

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The Root 100 Is Back! (Featuring Toure, TJ Holmes and Melissa Harris Perry)

ToureNewark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker, musician Esperanza Spalding and writer Toure made The Root 100 list of influencers today. The annual rundown of movers and shakers this year includes a lot of folks I've written about here at The Snob over the past four years, including the prolific Melissa Harris Perry, TV show host and author Marc Lamont Hill, my not-boyfriend on The Daily Show Wyatt Cenac, my other not-boyfriend who married some woman who wasn't me CNN's TJ Holmes, the best haircut in the biz (and sharpest tack in MSNBC's dayside drawer) Tamron Hall, the man formerly known as "pretty, pretty princess" Harold Ford Jr., my Twitter friend Jamil Smith who's a producer on The Rachel Maddow Show, pundit Jamal Simmons, this site's most prolific corrections letter writer, super political pundit Roland S. Martin, fellow blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates and comic, Onion editor and Black Snob theme song performer Baratunde Thurston. There's also a bunch of super rich/famous/fancy people on the list to, such as your Beyonces and your Jay-Zs. But they're on every list everywhere, so they don't matter. The Root will have an awards reception for their honorees Nov. 5th here in Washington, D.C. at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, so sit politely by your laptops and wait for your e-vites. (The Root)

Natalie Hopkinson Shames the Black Middle Class Blamers

On The Root today, author and contributing editor Natalie Hopkinson goes in on those who accuse the black middle class of "abandoning" poorer black Americans by relaying the experience of Washington, D.C.'s black middle class members who remained in the city, even after the 80s crack epidemic opened up around them. Hopkinson was responding to a recent Washington City Paper story that cited the abandonment of the city by the black middle class as slowing progress in fixing city school districts.

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The Root's Jeneé Desmond-Harris Does Some Black Marriage Crisis Push-Back

Want to add some weapons to your "Ugh, I hate all these black marriage panic stories" arsenal? Today over on The Root, Jeneé Desmond-Harris chatted with two researchers who provided counter arguments and narratives to the greatest panic of our "Post-Racial" age -- Why your Cousin Earnestine can't get a man. The counter research argues she'll probably get a man before she turns 35, since quite a few women get married by then, pointing out our "never married" stats are skewed since the "black woman never married" stat starts counting from age 18 and up. Most folks, no matter what their race or socio-economic status is in America, are not putting a ring on it out of high school, let alone by 25. Also, most black men at the tune of more than 80 percent and up are still marrying black women. Even your wealthy ones, which just one sitting of "Basketball Wives" will demonstrate to you, still mostly date and marry black women. (Even if "Basketball Wives" also demonstrates that these black women they desire are also fundamentally insane.) So, just put these statistics in your pillow and spoon with them at night until they turn into the Nubian prince of your dreams. (The Root)