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My Mother's Big Fat Gay Wedding?
When I get married (yeah, I said it — “when,” not “if”), my mother will be the one to walk me down the aisle. Because the other side of my DNA forfeited, as a single parent Frances wins the job by default. So if the image of two women strutting hand in hand down the…
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Rep. Weiner and the Rise of Full-Frontal Texting
I’m the type of girl who giggles when ads for Cox Communications come on. “Working hard for every smile! Cox, your friend in the digital age.” Right. Funny thing is, the digital age has produced more than just a few subliminally pornographic cable commercials. There’s an epidemic sweeping the nation faster than FiOS: the penis…
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A Fly Brother Talks Travel
“Morena. Mooooreeena.” With my nonexistent Portuguese and dormant Spanish, it took a minute to realize the man selling bracelets on the beach was calling my name. “Morena” meant me, “black girl.” Now, in the States, strangers don’t try to grab your attention by singing to you about your skin color — at least not the…
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'Single Ladies'? Must We?
Last weekend I was coaxed into the club despite my popular post-30 hook, “Grown women don’t dance; we … sit the hell down.” Over the years, my hooves have done more than enough Electric Sliding, strolling and two-stepping. So I’ve been boycotting the club since I stopped buying my going-out clothes at Bebe. “That chick…
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Single-Minded: I Worked for Oprah
I met Oprah once. Well, actually, to be clear, I met Oprah, but I’m entirely positive that she didn’t meet me. In the fall of 2002, I had a fresh diploma from Columbia in one hand and a fistful of bills in the other. For the past four years, declaring myself an English-literature and creative-writing…
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When Friends Come Out
One of the first e-mails I got when my plane landed Monday had just two sentences: “Are you back?” and “Don Lemon is gay.” A friend wanted to fill me in on all the “breaking news” I’d missed while in the jungles of Brazil, but in the most casual way possible. Like “Your dog ate…
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The World's Real-Life Fairy Tale
If the events of last weekend have taught worldwide cynics anything, it’s that fairy tales really do come true. Because in less time than it takes to wake a sleeping beauty, Cinderella married her Prince Charming, the evil dragon was slain, villagers gathered ’round the castle to cheer and the world lived happily ever after.…
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Pregnant Teen Like Me
More than 50 years ago, journalist John Howard Griffin, a white man from Texas, decided that he wanted to know firsthand what being black in the segregated South was like. For six weeks, Griffin rode the Greyhound bus from Louisiana to Georgia with a medically induced tan, posing as a black man. His book report…
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Good Education Is a Right, Not a Crime
Start typing “mother arrested” into Google, and the Internet wastes no time filling in the rest: “for lying about her address.” Not “for selling her daughters on Craigslist,” “for feeding her sons drywall” or “for locking her kids in the basement like Boo Radley,” but for trying to educate them beyond the borders of their…
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Single-Minded: Why Girlfriends Don't Need a Holiday
Essence magazine dubbed April 13 Girlfriend Appreciation Day in recognition of previously unappreciated BFFs everywhere (and the magazine’s first-ever “girlfriends” issue). But something tells me Hallmark won’t be cranking out more Mahogany cards anytime soon. Cynicism is an almost involuntary reaction to made-up holidays, for me at least. Barring Take Our Daughters and Sons to…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
