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Are Hair Extensions for Girls a Bit Too Much?
I’ve been following the recent outrage on hair blogs about a mother, who shared a video of her 2-year-old daughter, Kailee, getting crochet twists, a “protective style,” which is more or less the latest euphemism for a weave. That statement is likely to get some backlash, so let me explain it up front. The differences…
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We Dated for 2 Years and He Still Wouldn’t Claim Me as His Girlfriend
I was dating this guy for about two years and I wanted to become his girlfriend, but he kept telling me that he wanted to wait until he got a full-time job because he wanted to take care of me, but we were doing boyfriend-girlfriend stuff anyway. I didn’t understand, so I told him I…
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Why We Need More Films About Slavery
I was prepared to dislike Kara Brown’s Jezebel article, “I’m So Damn Tired of Slave Movies,” based on the title alone. That sentiment has been popular lately, given all the attention garnered at the Sundance Film Festival for actor-turned-director-producer-screenwriter Nate Parker’s upcoming film, The Birth of a Nation. Reports from Utah say the movie—a biography…
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How Can I Start a Family-Dinner Tradition When My In-Laws Hate My Cooking?
I cooked a huge Sunday dinner for my husband, my family and my in-laws because my husband wants to start a new tradition. He wants this to be a regular thing. My family was complimentary, but my in-laws were very obviously less than impressed. I’m a bit offended and sad that his family wasn’t happy…
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Janet ‘Aunt Viv’ Hubert’s Video Rant Misses the Point About #OscarsSoWhite
Martin Luther King Jr. Day turned out to be quite eventful for Hollywood. Jada Pinkett Smith announced via video that she would be boycotting this year’s Academy Awards because of the exclusion of black performances in the four major acting categories. This is the second year in a row that black actors have been shut…
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After Outrage, Publisher Pulls Happy-Slaves Children’s Book
Editor’s note: Amid growing criticism of this children’s book depicting happy slaves baking a cake for George Washington, publisher Scholastic announced late Jan. 17 that it is pulling the book from retailers. In a statement to the Associated Press, Scholastic said this: While we have great respect for the integrity and scholarship of the author,…
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Elle, You Just Don’t Understand #BlackGirlMagic
On Wednesday, Elle published an essay by Linda Chavers lamenting the use of the popular phrase “Black Girl Magic.” Chavers’ essay was prompted by Essence magazine’s use of the catchphrase for female black excellence on its February-issue covers. “There’s something else that rubs me the wrong way about the phrase ‘black girl magic,’” writes Chavers.…
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I’m Raising My Boyfriend’s Kids and He Refuses to Help in Any Way
I am 31 with two children. Two-and-a-half years ago, I started dating a guy I knew in high school. He has custody of his three kids, but ultimately, I am raising them without his company. He is a business owner, and all he seems to care about is money! Of course, I hate it! He…
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Christine Beatty Hopes Reality-TV Show Will Help Her Escape Shadow of Scandalous Affair With Detroit Mayor
Before 2008, Christine Beatty, as the chief of staff to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was a celebrated strategist with a promising future in politics. That changed the morning the Detroit Free Press published the private, intimate text messages that Beatty and Kilpatrick exchanged on their government-issued phones during their six-year extramarital affair. The fallout was…
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No, Tyler Perry, People Don’t Dislike Your Work Because Your Characters Are Fat
I feel about Tyler Perry the way Spike Lee did before they both called a truce on bashing each other in the media, which is to say, with rare exception, I’m no fan of Perry’s work. I respect that many good people are Perry fans. Case in point: Perry has four shows on OWN, including…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
