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Lee Daniels Needs to Stop It With This White-Girl Lead in Star and His Magical Negro Speeches
Lee Daniels often espouses racial views typically heard only from characters in a Magical Negro movie. It’s one of those characteristics about the celebrated director that you like to forget in order to enjoy his art. Unfortunately, Daniels won’t cooperate with some of us in such an endeavor because he refuses to stop assuaging white…
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Mariah's World Is Flat and Uninteresting
In theory, Mariah Carey, reality star, sounds nothing short of must-see television. Long before Real Housewives came along, Carey offered the world various strains of grandiosity, eccentricity and lots o’ theatrics. Surely, someone who admittedly acknowledges living in her own bubble would be the perfect vehicle for a new reality series. However, Carey has been…
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Why Would Any Black Person Want to Serve in Trump’s Administration?
There are many reasons for anyone of conscience not to serve in the administration of our hate-mongering, habanero-hue-having president-elect. He is a racist. He is a sexist. He is a xenophobe. Likewise, there are plenty of reasons for a black man in particular not to want to serve in the administration of such a character.…
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Our Next President Is a Thin-Skinned Twitter Troll, so What Does This Mean for Artists Who Criticize Him?
It’s often difficult to resist the urge to let my eyes roll to the back of my head at peak Janet Jackson speed upon hearing the declaration that X issue is a distraction from Y, the bigger, more important matter at hand. Yes, in media, superficial stories can often be assigned more attention than their…
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Before Erykah Badu Hosted the Soul Train Awards Sunday, She Threw a Vegan Dinner: Explained
Upon my receipt of an email containing an invitation to a soul vegan dinner hosted by Erykah Badu that required the donning of a kimono, an immediate response came to mind: Of course Badu wants me to eat vegan food dressed like Kinu from A Different World. Badu doesn’t strike me as a Popeye’s Tuesday two-piece-special…
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Ben Carson Knew When to End the Charade; Too Bad Tangerine Mussolini Didn't
There are many reasons not to serve in the Donald Trump administration. For starters, by the simple virtue of Tangerine Mussolini’s being grossly unqualified for the presidency, who could blame anyone for not wanting to serve under what will likely prove to be a disastrous commander in chief? However, when it comes to the likes…
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We Owe Donald Trump as Much Respect as He Gave Us During His Run for President
In a concession speech that was exceptionally gracious, given the behavior of her political opponent throughout this abysmal and subsequently catastrophic election season, Hillary Clinton declared, “Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” Clinton is a consummate professional, and though she deserved a…
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Stop Pitting Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween Against The Birth of a Nation
If one ever wants to know what the slower side of intelligentsia is thinking or, in this case, not really thinking, in 2016, you can often find the answer in a meme. To wit, after Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween grossed more than $28 million opening weekend, I stumbled upon an unfortunate lil’ meme that compared…
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Really, CNN? You're Hot With Donna Brazile, but Cool With Corey Lewandowski Being on Trump's Payroll?
Donna Brazile responded to headlines regarding her resignation from CNN—in light of leaked emails showing her providing the Hillary Clinton campaign with debate questions—in familiar, black-auntie fashion. Brazile quoted Michelle Obama’s “When they go low, we go high.” She invoked Martin Luther King Jr. She thanked people for their prayers, in some instances, in a…
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Thankfully, Money. Power. Respect. Is Less Love & Hip Hop and More Married to Medicine
For black professionals who do reality television, there often needs to be a middle ground in terms of entertainment value—as in, some kind of balance between Olivia Pope at a Jack and Jill banquet and Joseline Hernandez, inebriated and full of rage. Anything besides shows like The Real Housewives of Potomac, which spent far too…
