culture
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7 Truisms Creatives Will Appreciate
Are you a creative? Do you create shit for a living? If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, you are a creative. If you are a creative (you answered “yes” to either of the two aforementioned questions), then I’d bet you a plum nickel that while people are happy for you and your…
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There Is No Such Thing as ‘Alt-Left’
On July 5, 1969, a group of musicians waited in the wings in London’s Hyde Park before singing at a free concert. They were members of one of the most famous groups in the world. But the Beatles were bigger than they were. The Temptations would sell more records than they did that year. And…
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Cardi B, Yay or Nay: GMG Staffers Share Their ‘Unpopular Opinions’ on America’s Unconventional Sweetheart
This is Unpopular Opinions, a romp through our staff’s personal Slack conversations that boldly reveals scandalous opinions that many would deem unpopular. So basically, it’s a conversation that proclaims, “We schaid what we schaid.” And this week’s topic of conversation is a woman whose name won’t stay off our tongues. Move over, *insert mediocre white…
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7 Black Shows to Watch This Fall TV Season
The fall season is near, and I have to be honest: I don’t care about trees changing colors (I live in Los Angeles, where it’s green … everywhere), and pumpkin spice makes me as excited as a vegan lion. But what I am enthusiastic about is what autumn entertainment will bring. Whether it’s the return…
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How 1 Black Woman Goes Inside Fla.’s Toughest Prisons to Help Inmates Get ‘Free on the Inside’
Facing a decade and a half in prison couldn’t stop her. Losing a loved one to suicide didn’t destroy her. Battling loss and pain while raising three children was not enough to make her quit. “Black Girl Magic” is a beautiful phrase. It summons up the image of some supernatural divination that has been arbitrarily…
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Joel Osteen Sounds a Lot Like Donald Trump
Joel Osteen has been having a tough time; some of it due to Hurricane Harvey, which ravaged parts of Texas, and most of it due to his response to it and now-revisionist storytelling (can we say “lying” and not be struck down?), akin to the current president and resident liar in chief, Donald Trump. Let…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Shonda Rhimes Changes the Face of Television Forever
The pop-cultural impact of Shonda Rhimes cannot be overstated, although at this point, it’s hard to imagine TV without her forceful, casually diverse, complicated and occasionally ruthless characters who fall outside of what was heretofore the “norm” (read: white, heterosexual male protagonists and their stories). In fact, one could argue that the writer, producer and…
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When Dancing Soothes the Soul
I’ve always loved to dance. I’d spend hours transfixed whenever dancers from the ballet or Soul Train were on TV. We were poor and immigrant in Stillwater, Okla., so there weren’t that many opportunities to see anything live. We also couldn’t afford dance lessons, so there were no recitals or classes for me. I would…