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On World Mental Health Day, Designer Kenneth Cole Offers Hope With the Launch of the Mental Health Coalition
October is a month of commemorations; it marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month, includes the last two weeks of Hispanic Heritage Month, and tomorrow is International Day of the Girl. But mental health is an issue that affects every demographic—in fact, the World Health Organization estimates 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health condition…
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Can Kids Be Kids? 8-Year-Old Michigan Girl Banned From Picture Day for Her Colorful Braided Bun
The last time we checked, people all over the world wear their hair in myriad styles—straight, curly, short, long, colored, braided, dreadlocked, etc.—and yet, children are inexplicably shielded from this in many schools, which continue to mandate their hairstyles. Arguably, these rules—which have, in some cases, prohibited children from attending classes or participating in extracurricular…
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She Did It! Jessica Nabongo Is the 1st Black Woman to Visit Every Country in the World
The last time we saw world traveler—no, adventurer—Jessica Nabongo, it was this past July in New Orleans at the 2019 Essence Festival. But while NOLA is an undeniably exciting city (and Essence Fest the annual convention of #BlackGirlMagic), it’s likely not the most exotic location Nabongo has visited as of Sunday, Oct. 6, when she…
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Tina Tchen Takes Charge: Michelle Obama’s Former Chief of Staff Is the New President and CEO of Time’s Up
Eight months after the untimely departure of former Time’s Up President Lisa Borders, the women’s advocacy organization has a new head—with a familiar face. Tina Tchen, co-founder of the organization’s Legal Defense Fund, is perhaps best known as Chief of Staff to forever first lady Michelle Obama, who tweeted about her former staff member’s newest…
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Be the Change: Gucci Is Offering Up to $6.5 Million in Grants and Scholarships Via Its Changemakers Program
You can talk about it, or you can be about it. While Gucci may have made a major misstep or two this year, the label has also made major progress on their expressed desire to be leaders in diversifying the fashion industry. Aside from making some significant hires, they’re also hoping to equip a more…
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‘I’m All Over the Place’: Is That Why We Can’t Escape You, Rihanna?
At the risk of infuriating “The Navy,” we have a confession to make: Rihanna’s starting to wear us out. Specifically, we can’t get this woman’s foot off our necks—everywhere we go, there she is. Think about it: She’s trying to be on our faces, on our backs, on our coffee tables…hell, she’s even in our…
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Proving She’s the Best Selfie-Taker in the Game, Tracee Ellis Ross Shot Her Own Magazine Cover—on Her iPhone
Is there anything Tracee Ellis Ross can’t do? She makes us laugh weekly on Black-ish, is a producer on Mixed-ish, is a regular on best-dressed lists, is a regular (and real) source of fitspo, and recently launched her own haircare line (knowing her hair sparks major envy). And apparently, her selfie game is epic enough…
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Brother’s Keeper: Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size Explores the Mythology and Painful Reality of Brotherhood
To say Tarell Alvin McCraney is masterful at articulating black male coming-of-age stories in America would be an understatement. His play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (now better known as the 2017 Academy Award-winning screenplay Moonlight) gave us a lens onto a black boy’s reckoning with emotional abandonment and his burgeoning sexuality in the…
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Are We Ready to Have a Constructive Conversation About Slave Play? (Because We Saw It for Ourselves, and Have Thoughts)
In the months since Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play upended the theater world (and many of our moral and historical sensibilities), moving from a sold-out run at the New York Theatre Workshop to Broadway, much has been written about its controversial narrative—some factual, some distinctly disingenuous (and some from the playwright himself). In fact,…
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Royalty in Our DNA: A New Crop of Magazine Covers Make Us Majestic
A pair of ruffed pages; three queens; a member of modeling royalty…as the October and November magazine covers made their debut, we were delighted to see blackness front, center and regal, as we should be. Vogue placed Jaden and Willow Smith and supermodel Jourdan Dunn atop its Italian and British covers, respectively, while Essence paid…
