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Missing the Met Gala This Year? Make It Your Own—From the Comfort of Home!
Of the many repercussions resulting from the outbreak of COVID-19, the cancellation of the 2020 Met Gala on May 4 is seemingly among the most superfluous, though New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art would surely disagree, as the event is its most high-profile annual fundraiser. Of course, it goes without saying that the crisis…
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Excerpt: George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue Is a Black, Queer, Coming-of-Age ‘Memoir-Manifesto’ for Us All
All Boys Aren’t Blue, a “memoir-manifesto” published by Farrar Straus Giroux debuting on Tuesday, April 28.
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'I Had to Shave It Off': Halle Berry's Daughter Learned About Hair Maintenance the Hard Way With a Quarantine Cut
I remember well the age I was when I demanded to take over the maintenance of my own hair. I was 8 and a soon-to-be latchkey kid (with minor supervision from our landlords upstairs), and felt it was high time that I graduate into doing my own hair since my TV journalist mother rarely had…
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The Gift: Beyoncé Donates $6 Million to COVID-19 Relief Through Her BeyGOOD Initiative
April 23, 2020 might mark the fourth anniversary of the release of Beyoncé’s magnum opus, Lemonade, but there’s clearly no “Love Drought” when it comes to the singer’s philanthropy. (Yeah, we saw y’all making the song trend today—and agree it’s a perennial fave.) After making a noteworthy appearance on last Saturday’s live-streamed Global Citizen event,…
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Scholar, Mentor, Pioneer: Remembering Professor Cheryl A. Wall
“What does it mean for a black woman to work in the U.S. academy today?” This is the question longtime Rutgers University professor and author Cheryl A. Wall posed while introducing a panel of black female academics in 2009. It was a question central to Wall’s career and life’s work, as she strove to make…
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Undercover: Stay Safe—and Chic—in Masks Made by Black Designers
We’ve now lost count of the days that we’ve been sheltering-in-place, but as the blooms emerge and the days grow longer, we are understandably longing to spend time basking in the spring sunshine—but safety first. And news flash, Beloveds—when the day comes that we finally venture back outdoors en masse (Alexa, play “Brand New Day”…
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Parable of the Songwriter: Toshi Reagon Explains Why an Octavia Butler-Inspired Opera Is More Relevant Than Ever
When Octavia Butler published Parable of Sower in 1993, she fictionally forecasted the year 2024 as a dystopia under immoral and ignorant leadership, wracked by climate change and corporate and political avarice. In Butler’s vision of America, our so-called civilized society buckles under unbearable wealth inequality, a lack of basic resources like clean water and…
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The Truth Comes Out: Meghan and Harry's Pre-Wedding Texts to Thomas Markle Reveal His Lies
It’s been mere days since it was reported that Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle are severing all ties with several British tabloids, due to the ways the outlets “sought to insulate themselves from taking accountability for what they say or print—even when they know it to be distorted, false, or invasive beyond reason.” On…
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'I Was Just Lost': Coco Gauff Gets Real About the Pressure of Being a Phenom
At 16, Coco Gauff is projected to become one of the tennis world’s greats—buzz that began when the Florida teen was only 11 and already four years into following in the footsteps of her idol, Venus Williams. At 15, Gauff would best her hero at Wimbledon in 2019—and again at the Australian Open earlier this…
