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Stretching the Exquisite: Why Hearing Black Women’s Voices in Theater Is a Revolutionary Act
Big things were bubbling in Brooklyn two years ago. The year 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the first community development entity established in the United States. The nonprofit outfit has provided housing, employment, training and culture to residents of Bed-Stuy since 1967; 2017 was also the year the Restoration’s Billie Holiday…
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Back to the Essence: Tracy Morgan Returns to Bed-Stuy Community Garden to Kick Off 2nd Season of The Last O.G.
The Last O.G., the number one show on TBS, is heartening, sly and oh-so-real. It portrays in popular culture the collateral damage of mass incarceration—the lost time, the regrets, the broken ties, yet, the thing that makes The Last O.G. so compelling, so irresistible, is that it wraps that heavy, weighty reality in levity and…
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Georgia Legislature Outlaws Abortion With ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Bill. Stacey Abrams Would Have Vetoed This B.S.
Following a slew of states with Republican-led legislatures, Georgia lawmakers approved a “heartbeat” abortion bill Friday, making it one the strictest abortion bans in the U.S. With this bill, abortion is effectively illegal in Georgia once an embryo’s heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks in gestation—usually before many women…
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Man Out of Prison for Nearly 13 Years May Have to Go Back Over Government Error [Updated]
In 2006, Demetrius Anderson walked out of a Connecticut state prison a free man. And then, last week, getting ready for work at New Haven’s parks department, he was confronted by eight U.S. marshals who showed up at his apartment door. Of course, the 43-year-old was confused. “They pushed me on my refrigerator, so now…
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Fire Burns Down Main Building of Historic Civil Rights Space, the Highlander Center
Early Friday morning, a building at the Highlander Research and Education Center, one of the nation’s oldest social justice institutions and training spaces, in New Market, Tenn., was engulfed in flames and burned to the ground. A press release from Highlander notes that only one building was burned (one out of 10 on the organization’s…
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‘Go Awff’ and Cop That New Lil’ Kim Album, 9, Her First in 14 Years
Don’t come for me Beyonce fans, but before there was Queen Bey, there was that Queen Bitch—Brooklyn spitta, down-ass chick, Biggie’s girl, and one very nice emcee, Kimberly Jones, aka Lil’ Kim. Kim officially let fans know at an Atlantic City over the weekend that she would be soon releasing her fifth studio album, 9,…
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Predatory Ohio Pastor Found Guilty of Having Sex With, ‘Passing Around’ Teen Girl to Other Preachers
An Ohio minister is in jail for having sex with a girl starting when she was a 14-year-old, and encouraged two other men of the cloth to rape (as she was obviously too young to consent) her as well, federal prosecutors charge. Anthony Haynes, 40, former pastor of the Greater Life Christian Center in Toledo,…
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It’s Becoming More Evident: The Stress of Racism Is Killing Our Babies…and Us
If A=B, and B=C, does A=C? Well, not always, but in the case of stress, racism and preterm birth, one researcher thinks there’s a definitive case to be made. The jarring statistics are already out there: African-American women are three to four times more likely to experience a pregnancy-related death than white women. Additionally, African-American…
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He Doesn’t Do Politics, He Does Fun: Shaquille O’Neal Joins With Embattled Pizza Pusher, Papa John’s, in New Deal
When we got word Papa John’s Pizza got a new (black) face, Shaquille O’Neal, the crew at The Root had a field day. “Ask Shaq about his obsession with being a cop and if he had trouble finding a cap and cane for his soft shoe routine …,” quipped one. “The same Shaq who just…
