Blackface skit draws ire
By Moni Basu and Daphne Sashin, CNN
(CNN) - It was a homecoming rally to cheer on the Waverly Wolverines football team. They were undefeated this year. Everyone was proud.
Then, in the midst of the cheers and a sea of red and white pom poms came a 30-second skit that, for some, turned an afternoon of school pride into one of shame.
Three white male students involved in the skit made light of domestic violence, and they did it in racist manner, say some.
Two were in blackface as they re-enacted a 2009 domestic abuse incident in which singer Chris Brown assaulted then-girlfriend Rihanna. The student who played Brown was vying for the school's "Mr. Waverly" title - a school tradition in which skits are performed and the one that garners the most applause wins the title.
On Monday, Waverly alum Matthew Dishler posted a photograph of the skit on CNN's iReport. He says someone shared the image on Facebook.
The photo went viral.
Football punter outspoken on gay rights
(CNN) - Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe speaks to CNN's Poppy Harlow about politics, taxes and same-sex marriage. "It shouldn't be news when someone speaks out for equality," he said. "It should be news when someone speaks out against equality."
Pakistan's Malala: Global symbol, but still just a kid
By Ashley Fantz, CNN
(CNN) - Eleven-year-olds sometimes have trouble sleeping through the night, kept awake by monsters they can't see.
But Malala Yousufzai knew exactly what her monsters looked like.
They had long beards and dull-colored robes and had taken over her city in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan.
It was such a beautiful place once, so lush and untouched that tourists flocked there to ski. But that was before 2003, when the Taliban began using it as a base for operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Read more: One girl's courage in the face of Taliban cowardice
The Taliban believe girls should not be educated, or for that matter, even leave the house. In Swat they worked viciously to make sure residents obeyed.
But this was not how Malala decided she would live. With the encouragement of her father, she began believing that she was stronger than the things that scared her.
"The Taliban have repeatedly targeted schools in Swat," she wrote in an extraordinary blog when she was empowered to share her voice with the world by the BBC.
She was writing around the time the Taliban issued a formal edict in January 2009 banning all girls from schools. On the blog, she praised her father, who was operating one of the few schools that would go on to defy that order.
"My father said that some days ago someone brought the printout of this diary saying how wonderful it was," Malala wrote. "My father said that he smiled, but could not even say that it was written by his daughter."
Now that active and imaginative mind could be gone.
FULL STORY
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What defines you? Maybe it’s the shade of your skin, the place you grew up, the accent in your words, the make up of your family, the gender you were born with, the intimate relationships you chose to have or your generation? As the American identity changes we will be there to report it. In America is a venue for creative and timely sharing of news that explores who we are. Reach us at inamerica@cnn.com.
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