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Single-Minded: On Shonda Rhimes and Deadlines
Last Friday I finally got a deadline. Knowing when to end something is sometimes the only way I can begin. For more than a year now, my agents, editor, mother, publicists and Facebook page have been talking about the screenplay I’m “writing” based on my collection of essays, Bitch Is the New Black. For more…
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Single-Minded: The Downsides of Love in Movies and Life
It took me two years to watch the movie Revolutionary Road, and as many days to get the bad taste of the word “relationship” out of my mouth after I saw it. When the movie came out, I was in my late 20s and not at all convinced that the institution of marriage was admitting…
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Single-Minded: Peer Pressure
The use of “workshop” as a verb gives me the giggles. Because I, like most people, laugh uncontrollably when unnaturally exposed to the elements of semicircle group therapy. “To workshop” is to temporarily brand oneself not only a self-help guru but also someone worthy of critiquing someone else’s work — be it poetry, a painting…
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Single-Minded: When Curiosity Saves the Cat
“I think you can awaken curiosity. I don’t think you can teach it,” explained Diane Sawyer on OWN’s marquee series, Master Class. In just two sentences, the anchor of ABC’s World News summed up my entire worldview. Curiosity, despite what it’s been accused of concerning cats, has given me life. It’s the intangible glue in…
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The Root Recap: The Game
It’s all about the hair. In the long-awaited Season 4 premiere of The Game, now born again on BET, the surest way to track any particular character’s progress over the last two years is through the tracks on their head. Girl Melanie (Tia Mowry) has gone from “Med School” to “Mrs.” So good riddance to…
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Single-Minded: On Being the Invisible Woman
I once had a too long conversation with someone before he realized that I was not the person he thought I was. When he finally looked into my eyes, something mimicking recognition, but definitely not embarrassment, flashed across his face before he headed for the mailroom door. I told my coworker, the woman he’d mistaken…
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Single-Minded: Committing to a City
Two years ago my mother came back from a trip she’d won to St. Croix and told me she was moving there. Period. That is what Frances does. She’s a doer. When I was a child, I’d follow her anywhere. I attended as many elementary schools as there are grades in elementary school, because changing…
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Single-Minded: Class Acts
“Do you consider yourself low class, middle class or high class?” In 1988 I had no clue what this question meant, and more than 20 years later I’m still confused. Back then, as far as classes went, I was in Mrs. Hall’s third grade at Avalon Elementary on Catalina Island. I was the only black…
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Single-Minded: Werewolves and Winter Boos
My friends say I’ve been acting weird. But really I’ve just been werewolfing myself lately. “You know when a dude knows he’s going to turn into a werewolf and locks himself into a jail?” explains Tracy Jordan to Liz Lemon on NBC’s 30 Rock when she finds him locked in his dressing room. Basically, it’s…
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Bad Meaning Bad: Nicki Minaj, Lil' Kim and Keri Hilson
“Hot damn, ho, here we go again.” —Lil’ Kim, “Quiet Storm (Remix),” 1999 With new seasons of Bad Girls Club and Basketball Wives on the horizon, the nonorganic beef between black Barbies Lil’ Kim and Nicki Minaj, plus singer Keri Hilson’s B-rated porno, er, video, the HBIC isn’t what it used to be. If it…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
