culture
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Why Miko Grimes’ Flavor of ‘Bou-ghetto’ Is Just Right for Me
I don’t like words like “ratchet” or “ghetto.” In short, they are reductive, marginalize a community, and tend to assign race to behaviors that are demeaning and demoralizing. Furthermore, they’re stereotypical language that tends to segregate us. I believe it’s elitist to sit back and ascribe language to a person’s behavior and attribute that to a class…
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Visiting Egypt, the Cradle of Civilization, Can Change Your Life
Karim El Minabawy stands on the Nile Terrace at the Semiramis InterContinental Hotel in Cairo, grinning as he gestures at the rainbow of lights surrounding the iconic river. “See these colors all around? … It is an amazing view by night. Three o’clock in the morning, you see these colors until sunrise,” says El Minabawy,…
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Michel’le’s Surviving Compton Doesn’t Forget About Dre
“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘Girl, why you ain’t in they movie? You was there. You was down with Ruthless Records right along with them boys,’” Michel’le Toussaint informs us in her intro to her Lifetime biopic, Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge and Michel’le. Straight Outta Compton is the movie to which Michel’le, as she is best-known,…
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10 Signs You Might Be Bougie
We’ve seen them on TV—from Whitley Gilbert on A Different World to Olivia Pope in Scandal: bougie black folk. Some wear their bougie with pride, like a scout badge, while others fight it ferociously, as if you had just called them a racist cop. You (or someone you know) may be bougie: full, half or…
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Who Gets to Be Black?
I don’t have to do nothing but eat, drink, stay black, and die. Langston Hughes initially penned the phrase, while Morgan Freeman’s Joe Clark famously paraphrased it in Lean on Me. Purportedly, Billie Holiday even uttered it during her first encounter with Maya Angelou. And while I might add “and pay taxes” (because the IRS…
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Unique Views Podcast, Episode 14: Social Media Suicide: It’s Just Podcast Talk
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Seriously, it wasn’t supposed to be just Danielle Young—aka Patti LaDanielle, aka The Root’s social-content producer—and me, Stephen “Gladiator” Crockett Jr. (I’m trying on nicknames, so just go with it, guys.) On this episode, we had a superspecial guest all set up, and then the interview got embargoed…
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Dear Lifetime, Don't Make a Beyoncé Biopic. Signed, Original Member of the Beyhive
When will everyone learn that when you go against Beyoncé’s wishes, only failure and fury will follow? There are rumors floating that Lifetime is considering making a film based on the life of the finest Creole to twerk the earth. A source tells the Daily Star, “Beyoncé is arguably the world’s biggest star and has…
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The ‘We Love You’ Project Embraces Black Men
Frustrated by the recent deaths of black men at the hands of the police, Washington, D.C.-based photographer Bryon Summers felt the need to do something to change the image of black men. Admittedly, he’s not a marching kind of guy, but he absolutely believes in the power of protest and making himself “heard.” His personal…
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GOP Candidate's Black Outreach: Kool-Aid, Watermelon and KFC
As many of us politicos have come to know, the Grand Old Party is overflowing with stupid white men. In this campaign season, though, Donald J. Trump has been sucking up so much of the election coverage, the rest of those of that dumb-dumb-diddy demo have been overlooked. That’s why I am so grateful to…