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No Coloreds Allowed? Book Party Turns Racist?
When trendy goes wrong: In August, author Teri Woods, best known for her True to the Game street fiction trilogy, threw a party at the hard-to-get-into New York club Greenhouse to celebrate her new book Alibi. Unfortunately, the majority of her 175 invitees couldn’t get in. The reason? They’re claiming racism. But this isn’t just…
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I Didn't Work This Hard Just to Get Married
Is it me or do many people look at single women, who are in their thirties or beyond, as flawed pariahs? As in, there must be something wrong with them if they aren’t married. As if the primary goal of all women is to be married and if said goal isn’t achieved, they’re not just…
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Reading List: The Intellectual Edition
Here are a few titles for those looking to water their intellectual growth. Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton By Duchess Harris Palgrave Macmillan, July 2009 A scholarly review of the involvement of black women in American politics from 1961 to 2001 that includes a range of areas including government roles, feminist organizations, literature,…
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Funny Man David Alan Grier
You probably know him best from his days doing whatever it took to get a laugh on In Living Color. Or maybe from his own sketch comedy show Chocolate News which to the dismay of some, was short-lived on Comedy Central. But there’s probably a lot you don’t know about author and comedian David Alan…
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Do African-American Studies Departments Need to be Revamped?
A round up of lit-related questions. South Africans Vs. Nigerians? Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses what she considers a strained relationship between Nigerians and South Africans in an essay for The Guardian. The piece comes on the heels of the news that Nigerian officials are fighting to ban the movie District 9 from playing…
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Right-Wing Slinging About Obama Hits Author
Charisse Carney-Nunes writes children’s books. Her books, which are published through her company Brand Nu Words, include titles like “Nappy” and “I Dream for You a World: A Covenant for our Children,” and are designed to empower kids. Committed to justice and equality, Nunes, whose books I’ve covered before, is one of the last people…
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Ebony Ain't What it Used to Be?
Jody Watley, yes, that Jody Watley (although it isn’t a verified Twitter account), recently tweeted about the potential sale of Ebony by Johnson Publications. She typed: Thinking Ebony/Jet never really changed with the times & Essence really needs a wider net for its cover subjects, same faces ovr&ovr Here’s my two cents regarding Ms. Watley’s…
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Bitch is the New Black, the Movie
There’s a lot of debate about the movie adaptation for Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” because of Tyler Perry’s attachment to the project. Folks are either supportive or straight up mad. That’s the Catch-22 of turning literary works into movies. It’s great that books, and in…
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Immigrants, Caribbean Literature, & Family
I like Elizabeth Nunez. I mean this two-fold. She’s sweet, yet direct, which reminds me of many of the matriarchs in my family. And like many of the matriarchs in my family, she’s taken on the role of helping others—in this case, black writers—through her work as a professor at Medgar Evers College and as…
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Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat
For years, playwright and screenwriter Stephanie Covington Armstrong battled what’s considered a “white woman’s problem.” In her new memoir, “Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia” she discusses her struggle as a black woman with a severe eating disorder. She talks with Books on the Root about bulimia, her painful…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
