culture
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I Am Your Uppity Negro
When I was growing up in and around Los Angeles, there were neighborhoods that I knew not to visit and certain stores I knew were off-limits. They were not for me. In fancy department stores, steely eyes followed me as I browsed, and salespeople wished me out the door as soon as I had walked…
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Fighting for the Fairy Tale: 4:44 and the Power of Vulnerability
Look, I apologize, often womanizedTook for my child to be bornTo see through a woman’s eyes … It’s the public apology some have been anticipating since the release of Beyoncé’s Lemonade, her seemingly confessional opus, almost entirely themed on surviving the pain of infidelity. Aside from being a groundbreaking hit, the visual album inevitably rekindled…
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Watch: Soul and Funk Icons Who Stood Tall for Black Empowerment
You could say that music usually reflects where we are as a society. The height of soul and funk music ran roughly parallel to the civil rights movement in America, from the 1950s to the ’70s, a period that was highly charged with political and social commentary. In today’s climate, it seems fitting to remember…
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How Much Is a Black Life Worth? We Calculated It
This week, Philando Castile’s family was awarded $3 million to settle a civil wrongful death lawsuit against the tiny township of St. Anthony, Minn. A week earlier, CNN reports, the family of Mike Brown reportedly received $1.5 million from the city of Ferguson, Mo., in the 2015 death of the 18-year old. It seems like…
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Jay-Z’s 4:44 Is the 1st Grown-Ass Hip-Hop Album
I’m a grown-ass, 40-year-old dad, so there are certain things I cannot do. I will never again eat at Chuck E. Cheese unless I want to end up on an episode of To Catch a Predator, but I’m also not old enough to eat at the Golden Corral. I can’t spend $200 on Jordans or wear…
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Watch: Sneak Peek of Array’s The House on Coco Road
In the 1980s, San Francisco Bay Area native Damani Baker and his family migrated to the Caribbean to join the Grenada Revolution. The move wasn’t his decision; he was a child at the time. Rather, Baker’s mother, Fannie Haughton, made the bold decision that, decades later, would be the basis of his documentary. The House…
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Tracing Your Roots: How Did My Ancestor Escape Slavery?
In revisiting the story of black refugees to Trinidad, we came across the tale of a foiled slave rebellion in Maryland. Dear Professor Gates: I am a Trinidadian who has been searching for information on my ancestor Henry Ransom, a black Colonial Marine who joined with the British in 1814 and was resettled in 5th…
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Black Music Month Playlist No. 5: We Made America Great in the 1st Place
Editor’s note: Every Friday for the month of June, aka African-American Music Appreciation Month, aka Black Music Month, we created a Spotify playlist based on the news of the week. Check out the stories behind playlist No. 1, playlist No. 2, playlist No. 3 and playlist No. 4. How fortuitous that the end of Black…
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Strong Enough for a Man, Made (as) a Woman: John McEnroe, Serena Williams and the Erasure of Black Female Excellence
“If [Serena] played the men’s circuit, she’d be, like, 700 in the world.” —John McEnroe “If I were a man, then it wouldn’t be any sort of question.” —Serena Williams John McEnroe cannot be serious. He couldn’t seriously think that he could question or attempt to qualify the greatness of the goddess known as Serena…
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Watch the Drones: Can Black Folks Benefit From the New World Order?
American business history is littered with stories of businesses that were started by, or profit off of, black folks but ritually lock us out. The black community spends billions on hair-care products, but most of the stores and companies we buy from aren’t for us or by us. African Americans drive the music industry, but…