culture
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Actress Kali Hawk Celebrates Black History Month and Gives a Lesson in Johnny Depp’s ‘Black’ History
In 2013, during promotion of Johnny Depp’s flop, I mean film, The Lone Ranger, it was alleged that Depp was a descendant of Elizabeth Key Grinstead, the first slave in the American colonies to sue for her freedom and win. Now, when you go to check the original Ancestry.com article that supposedly posted the findings,…
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Scandal Recap: Not My President
Like last week’s episode of Scandal, there were enough flashbacks this week to give you whiplash. Luckily for you, I’ve sorted it all out below. The past is prologue. One night after vice presidential candidate Cyrus Beene gave an impressive debate performance on the campaign trail, Cyrus noticed that his running mate, Frankie Vargas, had…
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The Lego Batman Movie Is the Brokeback Batman We’ve Always Wanted
(Slight spoilers, but not really!) The story of Batman is now as much an American fable as that of Paul Bunyan, John Henry or Tom Sawyer. His origin story—rich heir to murdered parents trains to fight crime, uses gadgets and wears a costume, etc.—is so ingrained in popular culture that the last few Batman movies…
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Beyoncé Should Win All the Grammys This Weekend, but It Won’t Make Up for How This Show Treats Black Women and Black Art
On its surface, when news hit of Beyoncé leading the 2017 Grammy Awards with nine nominations, it read as nothing short of a win for the behemoth pop star. The Houston native has scored nods in the three big categories: Album of the Year, for her sixth studio offering, Lemonade; and Song of the Year…
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Everybody Hates Chris Cuomo After CNN Host Compares Fake News to the N-Word
Whoa there, Chris Cuomo, slow down—your ignorance is showing. On Thursday the CNN anchor was on Sirius XM’s POTUS channel and was trying to make a connection regarding what journalists feel when they hear the term “fake news.” As reported by The Hill, the host of CNN’s New Day said: I see being called “fake…
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The Pioneer: Wanda James, the 1st Black Woman to Own a Marijuana Dispensary, Gets Real [Retracted]
RETRACTED (6/12/18): This story has been removed because we have discovered it was in breach of our editorial standards. If you’d like to know more, you can read an editor’s note here. A cached version of the story is available here for transparency.
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NAACP Image Awards Aren’t the Black Oscars but a Much-Needed Fete of Black Excellence
The NAACP Image Awards have been around for the past 48 years. That is almost five decades of honoring black excellence at the highest level. In 2015 and 2016, it seemed as if black America had been sent a memo that the esteemed Oscars were just for white talent, thus causing the internet to erupt…
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From Dr. Dre to #BlackBauer, 24: Legacy’s Corey Hawkins Is Doing Big Things
If there’s one thing 24 fans know, it’s that things don’t always go as planned. And that was certainly the case for the debut of 24: Legacy, Fox’s reboot of its game-changing series 24, after Super Bowl LI. Of course the Super Bowl would go into a first-ever overtime, pushing 24: Legacy’s well-timed promotional premiere…