culture
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Review: Fences Is an Acting and Directorial Feast Fit for August Wilson's Words
August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences has finally made it to the big screen, directed by Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington. Wilson’s masterful storytelling about a working-class family living in a historic Pittsburgh neighborhood and fighting for survival, personally and professionally, jumps off the screen under Washington’s brilliant direction. Wilson’s splendid storytelling blends perfectly with…
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Hidden Figures Upholds the Legacy of 3 Extraordinary Black Women Who Changed the World
Hidden Figures is the riveting and inspirational story of three black female mathematicians who excelled against all odds at NASA. Many of us are just now learning their names: Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn. So much of our history has been omitted from the curricula of many schools. That’s a huge chunk of…
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Fences Reminds Me That Loving My Son Means Rejecting Fatherhood
“Your firstborn son gots to be a junior,” my barber ordered. In the weeks before my son’s birth, the person who regularly gave me a razor lining insisted that I bestow my full name on my child. Nodding men in the shop unanimously agreed. “Man, you’ve got a great name,” he added, meaning that I…
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Kim Kardashian Should Not Be Blamed for the F–kery of Kanye West
When Kanye “He’ll leave your ass for a white girl” West and Kim Kardashian married in May 2014, the world knew that it would be a match made in heaven: two egos finally becoming one in holy matrimony. Kanye West, a man who has had an infatuation with stereotypically beautiful women—read: women who have a…
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Go for ‘Peak Blackness’ This Holiday With These Dishes From the Diaspora
How was your first helping of the holiday meals? Did you go in on all of your favorites when you went home for the holidays, as if mini marshmallows only exist within a 1-mile radius of your parents’ home … for three days of the year? Did you try the corn-pudding recipe from the founder…
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Choosing Family: Stop Telling LGBT People We Need to Go ‘Home’ During the Holiday Season
Each December, I get excited about the idea of the upcoming holiday season—from Christmas music to baked goods to buying presents for loved ones; it is an enjoyable time for many people. This year has been no different. But it also does not escape me that the holiday season can be a difficult time for many…
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Nate Parker Bashed for Sexual Assault Allegations, but What About Casey Affleck?
Recently, on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, co-host Charlamagne tha God asked guests Jamilah Lemieux and Amber Phillips about Nate Parker. Among his varying questions on the controversial subject, Charlamagne referenced the notion of a double standard in that Parker can’t evade backlash over accusations of sexual assault the way that white celebrities such as…
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When It Comes to Being Reality TV’s Most Likable Bad Guy, Stevie J, You Are the Father
Steve J is a likable scoundrel. The famed producer-turned-infamous reality star has seemingly long been a womanizer, but very few people who open up the messier parts of their lives to a judgmental television audience still manage to come across as so affable. It is a testament to Steven Jordan’s personality, which is chock-full of…