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Behind Picket Fences: In Sam Kebede’s EthiopianAmerica, the American Dream Masks a Common Nightmare
There is palpable energy prior to a theatrical production; a current of excitement that buzzes through an audience anticipating new work on the stage. At the press night for EthiopianAmerica, the newest production from the Chicago-based Definition Theatre Company staged at Victory Gardens, there was also a profound feeling of family, as several members of…
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LeBron James’ I Promise School Receives a $1 Million Boost from Dick’s Sporting Goods
The good news keeps coming for LeBron James’ groundbreaking I Promise School in his native Akron, Ohio. Following April reports that the school was already yielding incredible results in its first year, the NBA star surprised I Promise students by announcing that they’d be receiving a brand new gym, thanks to a $1 million grant…
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Live to Tell: 25 Years After Genocide, Miracle in Rwanda Sheds Light on a Tragic Legacy
It’s been 25 years since the civil war that resulted in genocide against the Tutsi tribe of the East African nation of Rwanda. During a three-month period in 1994, as many as one million Rwandans were killed, including approximately 70 percent of the Tutsi population. Among those who lived to tell the massacre was Immaculée…
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Ready for a New Adventure? The Glow Up, VSB and Toyota Are Taking Charge in Philly!
Feeling overdue for a new adventure in your life? The first step is believing it’s possible—and trust us, it is. On Thursday, May 2, we’re bringing the empowerment and inspiration you need to Philadelphia when The Glow Up and Very Smart Brothas host “Taking Charge,” in partnership with Toyota. That’s right; we’re bringing one of…
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A Word: How We Fight White Supremacy Reminds Us That ‘We’ Have the Power
What does it mean to fight white supremacy today? After centuries of trying, those of us actively committed to doing so know that grand gestures are well outnumbered by daily acts expressed in myriad ways with varying levels of visibility. This is the message of How We Fight White Supremacy, a new African American anthology…
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Review: Dael Orlandersmith's Lady in Denmark Bears the Strange Fruit of Billie Holiday's Legacy
When Dael Orlandersmith said she wanted to write a play about a Danish white woman who loved Billie Holiday, people balked. Why would a black female playwright who has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her meditations on race, colorism and culture want to … well, write outside of her race? “I said, ‘Why can’t…
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The Trouble With Jimmy Fallon
All in all, he wasn’t a bad choice to host the Golden Globes. He had the requisite clever and colorful opening number, an affable demeanor and the ability to improvise. He even started off strong with some postelection shade—though it didn’t erase our memory of his pre-election playfulness with the now-PEOTUS. And it certainly couldn’t…
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We Are All Insecure
Eight weeks ago, The Root published an article I wrote, titled, “Is Insecure Preying on Black Women’s Insecurities?” It was a simple question, based on an honest concern I’d had while previewing the show prior to its debut on HBO: As viewers—and, at times, voyeurs—of Insecure, what was our intended takeaway? Was there a deliberate…
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When Will We Learn?
You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have! “Twice as good” is the standard set for generations of black and brown children across America (and beyond), a warning consistently administered in stern but loving tones from parental figures as dissimilar as the fictional Rowan Pope and first…
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Who Gets to Be Black?
I don’t have to do nothing but eat, drink, stay black, and die. Langston Hughes initially penned the phrase, while Morgan Freeman’s Joe Clark famously paraphrased it in Lean on Me. Purportedly, Billie Holiday even uttered it during her first encounter with Maya Angelou. And while I might add “and pay taxes” (because the IRS…
