blackness
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I Am Not Your Negro Brings Back Baldwin’s Voice for a New Generation
In the late 1970s, James Baldwin began working on an idea for a book that would tell the story of America through the lives of three of his murdered friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. “I want these three lives to bang against and reveal one another as they did in…
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My Daughter Is In A Hip-Hop Dance Class. I Want Her Blackness To Make Her Better Than Everybody Else.
I’m a dance dad. While I’m not standing outside the studio yelling at my daughter to get in formation or tighten up those pirouettes, I do find myself at dance class at least once a week and, on special occasions, twice a week. See, my daughter has been taking dance lessons since, I believe, she…
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Panama and Shamira Discuss Solange's "A Seat At The Table"
Panama: So, Solange dropped an album recently that has the internet’s buzzing: A Seat At The Table. Let Facebook tell it, it’s the best, Blackest album that’s been released in quite some time. I’m not sure I’m in that camp, though I can understand why folks love it so much. But I don’t think it’s nearly…
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The National Museum of African American History and Culture Is The Blackest Thing I’ve Ever Seen This Week…and Ever
I’ve been to the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) twice so far – yes, that was a stunt – and it is easily the second Blackest place I’ve ever been in life. The Blackest? I’m glad you asked. That would be in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, DC, where…
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How To Avoid Getting Shot And Killed By The Police If You Happen To Be Black
I will concede that we don’t know everything about the circumstances that led to Philando Castile’s death. What we do know, however, is that it would seem like Castile did everything Black people are taught and learn to do when interacting with the police; all things we’re taught and learn to do to avoid what happened to…
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Jesse Williams is Brilliant
Apparently, God woke up one fine mornting and she said you know what it’s a Friday and I ain’t got shit to do. Except it was actually Wednesday, August 5, 1981. On this day I shall give y’all Earth heathens a man. He will be smart. He’s gon’ be famous. And y’all don’t say “woke”…
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Naomi Campbell and the ‘Twice as Good’ as White People Myth
Recently, for The Guardian, Naomi Campbell shared an excerpt from a limited edition, two-volume book that chronicles her life as a groundbreaking and highly successful supermodel and all of the opportunities stemming from that. Yet for all that is shared in the excerpt—her as a supermodel, her speaking with world leaders as a contributing editor…
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Prince Was Unapologetically Black Before It Was Cool To Be So
Thursday night, I attended a screening of the Roots reboot at the Tribeca Film Festival. While in the van on the way to the post-screening reception, I met Alondra Nelson — Dean of Social Sciences at Columbia University — and a conversation about Roots segued into a conversation about her work in genealogy, which then…