antisocial
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Queen Sugar and Ava DuVernay Had the Sweetest Garden Party in NYC
First things first: When it comes to Queen Sugar and director Ava DuVernay, I’m a total fan. I am biased. I am prejudiced. I am not objective at all. I love the show she created, which is beautiful and heartfelt. I love the actors who were cast to star in it, who are charming and…
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Never Bring Cicely Tyson Water in a Bottle, and Other Lessons From AT&T’s Humanity of Connection Event
If I am lucky enough to make it to 93, I want to be a fly 93 just like Harlem’s own, the legend, actress Cicely Tyson. One, she dresses impeccably. Two, she’s both wondrous and intimidating. As someone who loves (and still fears) her soon-to-be 90-year-old grandmother, I can only imagine what Tyson is like…
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Harlem Haberdashery’s 5th Annual Masquerade Ball Was ‘a Mood’
I’m back, Antisocialites! After spending most of the winter trying to both not freeze outdoors and not die from the sauna that is my radiator-heated apartment, I have to say, I really didn’t go to any parties. Oh, I went out on the rare occasion, but my social life (and this column about my social…
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Once on This Island’s Opening Night Gives Me Jitters While I Consider Reginald F. Lewis’ Billion-Dollar Deal
OK, first off, in this revival of the 1991 Tony Award-nominated musical Once on This Island, I had no clue that it was Merle Dandrige from Greenleaf playing the death demon, Papa Ge. I’ve watched one-and-a-half entire seasons of the OWN religious drama, and I thought I could pick her out of a lineup, but…
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SportsBalls and Benefit Galas: I Went to All These Things and Managed Not to Almost Kill Myself (Yet)
There are literally too many things to go to in the fall. During that season in New York City, every charity group, institution, media company and rando (including The Root) throws a ball, gala or fancy party of some kind. Our own shindig, The Root 100, goes down Nov. 9. So October, for me, has…
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Tidal X Was an Epic 6-Hour Musical Marathon I Wasn’t Fit Enough to Run
I’m out of shape. It’s a reality. I just recently started working back out again because stairs were looking like obstacles I could not surmount without sounding like Lord Vader when I was through. I can’t run a marathon. I can’t even run the block. And I definitely wasn’t prepared to run the race of…
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Too Sick to Socialize, but I Went to the NY Urban League’s Black & White Champagne Brunch and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Conference in DC Anyway
Three weeks. That is how long I’ve been sick with an unknown virus (the thing doctors tell you when they don’t know what it is but know it won’t kill you). It’s not the flu. It’s not a cold. But it is one thing—a jerk. Just the biggest jerk of a disease ruining my social…
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NaturallyCurly’s ‘Texture on the Runway’ Laid My Edges
I went natural before going natural was cool, back in 2000, 17 years ago, when curly-hair products for black hair were garbage. Armed with some stuff called “CurlUp” (which was clearly made for white hair), a tub of clear hair gel, the only book on natural hair I could find in 2000 and some hot-oil treatments,…
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Harlem’s Fashion Row Celebrates 10 Years While I Contemplate Whether I’m Over- or Underdressed
First off, I didn’t realize check-in was at 7, not 8:30. It was just the beginning of a series of disasters that led to my living out one of my nightmares: showing up late for … anything. I abhor being late. I have recurring nightmares about it, and normally I’m the spy who shows up…
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