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The First Supper
Back when President-elect Barack Obama was still slugging it out for the Democratic nomination, I took to the kitchen to soothe my frazzled nerves. (Cooking relaxes me.) What I came up with was a Hawaiian and African inspired savory supper that I called Barack pie. On the eve of the most important inauguration of our…
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Oh, What a Tangled Web, My Weave
Strange things happen when the husband of a happily married woman goes out of town. She calls up her girlfriends and begs them to come over, plying them with champagne and cupcakes. She spends inordinate amounts of time online, staring at dresses that if her husband were home, he would mock derisively. “I hate those…
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In Italy, At Least, Black is Beautiful
Now that the much buzzed about all-black issue of Vogue Italia has hit stands, readers can finally take in the mezmorizing glamour of black models filling the glossy’s pages—even if they can’t read the text, which will remain in Italian, even in U.S.-circulated copies of the magazine. I sat down with legendary modeling agent and…
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Breaking the Glass Ceiling Takes Grace
It was the refrain echoed again and again throughout Hillary Clinton’s campaign: It was time, her supporters claimed, for a woman to be president. It made me angry, and it made me tired, the way that white women assumed that my support of Barack Obama was a race thing; a “stand by your man” thing,…
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What $300 Can Do
Last year, when I gave birth to my daughter and then experienced a range of complications that rivaled a plot line from the television show “House,” I was shocked that such a thing was possible. Upon my release from the hospital, my doctor came to me and said, “Half a million women die every year…
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The Latest Wave of Black Genius
I was listening to Erykah Badu’s new CD, New AmErykah and I had one consistent thought, “This is genius.” Listening to New AmErykah, I was reminded of the powerful book, Black Genius edited by Walter Mosley, Manthia Diawara, Clyde Taylor and Regina Austin. Published in 2000, on the brink of a new century, the book…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
