culture
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Woman Who Caused Emmett Till’s Death Admits to Lying
We all (should) know the story of Emmett Till, the black 14-year-old Chicago boy who was murdered in August 1955 by two white men, J.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant. As the story goes, Emmett, who was visiting family in Mississippi, had gone into a store to buy some bubble gum. As he was…
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Scandal Recap: How to Get Away With Stealing an Election
Scandal’s back! Thank you, season 6 premiere, for providing us with an hourlong mental break from the headlines that are reminding us about our steady march toward becoming Nazi Germany. Let’s dive in, shall we? Woman down: Scandal wastes no time. We begin at presidential candidate Mellie Grant’s campaign headquarters on the night of the…
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Scandal Is Back to Help Us Forget About the Crazy Shit Going on in the Real White House
The current presidential administration has many of us wondering, “Where the hell is B613 when you need it??” Clearly, B613 hasn’t been busy ensuring the continued integrity and stability of the republic in real life, but the good news is that after a seven-month hiatus, B613 will be back on our TV screens this Thursday…
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Jacqueline Craig Case: Leaked Bodycam Video Shows Cop’s Violent Arrest of Mom Seeking Help
Updated Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, 3:30 a.m. EDT: The Fort Worth Police Department has dropped charges against Jacqueline Craig, 46, and her daughter, Brea Hymond, 19, and will not pursue charges against Officer William Martin for the violent Dec. 21 arrests of Craig and her daughters, Dallas News reports. Craig and Hymond faced charges of…
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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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8 Reasons We’re Grateful for New Edition
After more than 30 years in the business, Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Mike Bivins, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill are being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a highly anticipated, three-part biographical miniseries on BET that began airing Tuesday. As they promote the film, the members have been…
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Ain’t I a Woman: Marching Forward—What Now?
They came. They saw. They marched. Did you? Full disclosure: I didn’t—primarily for logistical reasons—but I watched in awe last Saturday as my social media feeds became a sea of pink pussy hats and cleverly worded signs, courtesy of friends and family attending women’s marches worldwide. As promised and in overwhelming numbers, on the first…
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#OscarsSoBlack: Finally, Some Melanin-Proficient People Receive Nominations
After two straight years of #OscarsSoWhite, in which black actors were shut out of all the acting categories, this year’s Academy Awards nominations featured so much blackness, some racist trolls on Twitter might just start calling the Oscars the BET Awards. Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins’ stunning coming-of-age tale, received a total of eight nominations (the…
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Review: BET Does Right by New Edition and All of Us
Just when you thought this television season couldn’t get any blacker, BET raises a fist and busts through the door with the ultimate “for us by us” miniseries: The New Edition Story. Often described as their generation’s Temptations and Jackson 5, New Edition—Ronnie DeVoe, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ralph Tresvant, Bobby Brown and, later, Johnny…