culture

If you are one of the legions of people sick to death of all the commentary about the state of black male/female relationships told through the Obama Example feel free to bypass this essay. If you’re among those sick to death of seeing single, professional black women blamed for the sorry state of those relationships…

In a tribute to his status as a global icon, Michael Jackson’s memorial was streamed all over the world, but if there was ever any doubt, we know with absolute certainty that he was, in the end, a black man. The memorial turned the Staples Center into a home-going like the world has never seen,…

Hollywood stars joined family, friends and fans from across the nation in bidding farewell to Michael Jackson today in a public memorial service in Los Angeles that featured emotional tributes to the man they hailed as the world’s greatest entertainer. The star-studded memorial extravaganza at the Staples Center followed a private funeral service attended by…

More amazing than the reasonable question is his defense of Michael in the face of slander. That sound you hear is the approaching locusts.

When Michael Jackson gave up the ghost recently, we may have witnessed an eerie embodiment of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel and in the Oscar-nominated film version starring Brad Pitt, Benjamin Button ages in reverse: Born a shriveled old man, he dies a newborn baby. As an 11-year-old…

Two weeks after the untimely death of Michael Jackson and the embarrassing coonery that became the 2009 BET Awards, which in part gave a cringe-inducing tribute to the King of Pop, and, to a lesser degree, the demise of Vibe magazine—all of which occurred eerily during Black Music Month—the R&B world is in great need…

I met Michael Jackson in 1984. We were both guests of Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg at Amblin, Spielberg’s production company on the Universal film lot. Whoopi Goldberg was preparing to play Celie, the protagonist in the film version of The Color Purple, a book written by my mother, and was giving a private stand-up…

I never got the joke. Not the Wacko Jacko puns I was supposed to riff on as a tabloid headline writer. Not the corny late-night TV gags I was supposed to sneer along with. Certainly not the glee with which everyone gawked and cackled at Michael’s grotesque appearance and Peter Pan fantasies. I never found…

From NewsOne (via the AP) Roland Martin will anchor a new Sunday public affairs show aimed at a black audience that will debut in September on the TV One network. The “Washington Watch” program aims to tap into a new interest in politics and government due to the election of President Barack Obama, said Johnathan…

According to the Washington Post, all that is known at this time is that McNamara died at his home in Washington early this morning. He was 93. A brief biography of McNamara can be found here. It should be noted that McNamara, a man who relied on data and statistics much to his credit and…