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Does Being on 'SNL' Really Matter?
(The Root) — Maybe Lorne Michaels doesn’t have Facebook. That would explain how the eternal executive producer of Saturday Night Live, the launching pad of enviable comedy careers since 1975, is having trouble finding black comedians to star on his show. Because — let the Internet tell it — there are tons of black female…
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'Scandal' Recap: It's All About the Hair
(The Root) — Somebody’s three-quarter-inch barrel curler was working overtime on last night’s episode of Scandal, from the disintegration of Olivia’s always epic side flip to Mellie’s lightweight lion’s mane. Hair — specifically its undoing — told the real story. The show opened with a flashback to lil’ Liv confronting her father, Darth Vader, er,…
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'Look at Me When I'm Talking to You'
(The Root) — In just the first four minutes of last week’s season premiere of Scandal, giddy gladiators finally got a glimpse of what life must have been like in the Pope residence. And, for anyone who grew up under the thumb of an exacting parent, that scene looked all too familiar. As it turns…
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'Homeboys in Outer Space': A '90s Classic
(The Root) — In 1999 the satirical media outlet The Onion asked several “everymen” what they thought of Kweisi Nfume’s accusation of flagrant whitewashing in major network programming. “With the possible exception of MLK’s assassination, there has been no greater setback in the struggle for racial equality than the 1997 cancellation of Homeboys in Outer…
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Black Rom-Coms Are Back
(The Root) — I recall being somewhat disappointed the first time I watched Brown Sugar. Remember, this was the early 2000s. Movies like The Wood, The Best Man, Love & Basketball, How Stella Got Her Groove Back — basically anything starring Taye Diggs and/or Omar Epps — were the norm. Back then, it was anything…
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What Rushing a White Sorority Taught Me
(The Root) — I had just gotten in from cheerleading practice when I got the call. On the other end, a chipper girl I’d met for the first time the night before gave me the good news: The sisters of Delta Gamma wanted me to be one of them. I’d made it past the first…
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'Ask a Slave': Come Down to the Plantation
(The Root) — The Harriet Tubman role was the last straw. After recurring guest spots spanning slavery to the civil rights movement, actress Azie Dungey was over the days of old. “The future just seemed like more history,” said Dungey. When a friend forming a historical actors’ troupe asked Dungey, who’d just finished playing a…
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'Winnie Mandela': The Sound of Silence
(The Root) — In the eponymous biopic Winnie Mandela, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson has mastered a new art form: emoji acting. With a stilted script, distracting soundtrack and costume changes rivaling Liberace’s, Hudson’s Winnie has little to do in the movie except look at things. Winnie Mandela, which opens Friday, is the first of two…
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'The Butler' Versus 'The Help': Gender Matters
(The Root) — Like many of the films in the “it’s complicated” historical-fiction genre, Lee Daniels’ The Butler uses broad strokes to paint a decidedly unpretty picture — the cinematic equivalent of an Instagram filter. But despite the artistic liberties and Forest Gump-like rendering of the life of White House butler Cecil Gaines — based…
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For Black Moms, Opting Out Is Not an Option
(The Root) — On the long list of rhetorical questions that remain perpetually unanswerable, the problem of whether or not women can “have it all” is right there at the top. Adding to this never-ending debate is a recent New York Times Magazine article that checked in with a group of women who a decade…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
