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VSB Talks To Underground Directors Anthony Hemingway and Salli Richardson Whitfield
Black stories told by black people. A novel concept, I know. But here we are all the way in 2017, our year in the lawd Beyonce, and the idea that the folk best-equipped to tell the empowering, perfervid, often-complicated stories of the real-world and fictionalized experiences of black people would be other black people is…
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Underground Season 2 Episode 3 Recap
Daniel’s learned a few more words since we saw him last episode. In addition to “love” we can add “strength” to his list of vocabulary words he’d choose to describe the black women in his life. He’s reading Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech to his daughter and she can’t believe northern black folk…
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Underground Season 2 Episode 2 Recap
I’m 1:30 into episode two of WGN’s Underground and I’m already crying. Sure, Venus is in Retrograde, my car is stuck in the ice and I’m craving salty snacks but I’m mostly crying because Bokeem Woodbine’s Daniel has been teaching himself how to read and write. This is courageous AF for any slave to do…
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Underground Season 2 Episode 1 Recap
Underground is back, y’all! Season two premiered last night so let’s get started… We open with an image of a well-coifed black man and… is that… why yes, it is! Bokeem Woodbine just blessed my whole year with barely any lines of dialogue. He plays a skilled worker who we see receive payment at the…
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Confession: I Went On 2.5 Dates With A Hotep And Lived To Tell The Tale
Before Facebook memes about women making a plate for their man and Dr. Umar Johnson took the interwebs by storm, I was quite uninitiated to the world of the Hotep. I knew guys like Shazza Zulu from A Different World existed but I never thought I was the kind of dame to have one stumble…
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This "Debate" Between Jessica Williams, Shirley MacLaine, And Salma Hayek Is Every Frustration I've Had With White Women
Women of all colors and backgrounds have been fighting for the right to be viewed with just as much humanity as men since we first crawled out of caves. This is a noble cause that all mankind must take up. We all know this. Or at least we should. But somehow whiteness always finds a…
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"Martin" The Show Was Great, But Martin Payne The Character Was Trash
Hey you! Yeah you over there. Are you sitting down? If so, great! Stay sitting down. If not might I suggest you find a nice comfy lumbar-supporting transcendental meditation cushion and commence to sitting your ass all the way the hell down because I’m about to drop a truth bomb on your said seated asses.…
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Atlanta Episode 10 (Season Finale): "The Jacket" Recap
I mistakenly walked into the season finale of Atlanta with the idea that we more or less knew what was to be expected of this episode. A couple of hat-tips to the quirkier aspects of Black American culture, some behind the scenes insight to the struggles of the rap game, a moment of tenderness between…
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Atlanta Episode 9: "Juneteenth" Recap
As a child I was always hyper-aware of the attempts at social climbing my parents made to move my siblings and me up the ladder rungs of black society. There were the Jack and Jill activities with the children of the Pastor at our local Megachurch, the etiquette classes that taught present-day me to chew…
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Atlanta Episode 8: "The Club" Recap
When FX first announced their partnership with NBC workhorse Donald Glover for their new show about the inner-workings of an up and coming rapper and his manager, I assumed scenes like the ones that take place in Atlanta’s “The Club” would be par for the course. Club appearances and popped bottles are, after all, much…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
