culture
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Gold Rush: Jay Z Takes an Unflinching Look at Racist, Violent War on Drugs in New Short Film [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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Will the Jordan Downs Redevelopment Turn Watts Into Calif.’s Flint, Mich.?
In August 2013, the city of Los Angeles approved a $1 billion project to tear down the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts and build a mixed-use development that includes apartments, shops and restaurants. At the time, both Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Housing Authority President and CEO Doug Guthrie lauded this development as a win for…
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Racism Explained to ‘New Blacks’ Like They're 5 Years Old
It seems as if every other week, another black celebrity sits down in front of cameras, microphones and a cunning white interviewer with a disarming smile and nefarious means, and tries to explain to the world the delusion that he or she is living in a post-racial America where inequality and prejudice no longer exist.…
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The Tragic Tale of TV’s 1st Black Stars Is Being Retold for the #OscarsSoWhite Era
Imagine a show so popular that when it’s on, even movie theaters stop films midreel and broadcast it so that audiences won’t stay home. For decades in the first half of the 20th century, that is exactly what The Amos ’n Andy Show was. During the heyday of radio, it was America’s most-listened-to program. Set in Harlem,…
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You May Choke Up at Some of the Items on Display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
A wide-eyed Lance Spencer, 12, stood against the wall, between a stone block once used to auction slaves and a glass-boxed gallery where a worker was adjusting the lights on a shawl that belonged to abolitionist Harriet Tubman. “It’s cool!” the seventh-grader at Eliot-Hine Middle School in Washington, D.C., exclaims. “That’s what I think is…
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Let’s Be Real: Society Finds Black Women With Curvy Bodies ‘Inappropriate,’ Not Their Clothes
Patrice Brown, also known as #TeacherBae, is a fourth-grade teacher in Atlanta. Because of her ability to have her students excel in the classroom, Brown has received the Educator of the Month award. This week, however, Brown is being talked about all across social media, not for her body of work but for her body at work—and her…
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Calif.’s Recreational-Weed Bill Could Be a Game Changer
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series that looks at the growing legal marijuana industry and its effect on the black community. Sue Taylor, 69, is a force of nature. The retired Catholic-school principal and grandmother of three is also one of the first African-American senior citizen owners of a cannabis dispensary. She’s based…
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Trouble With the Curve … in Fashion
“Please fit … please fit … please fit …” This was the prayer I sent up, standing in my underwear, eyeing the rack of gowns that had been chosen for me. After years of modeling, it wasn’t an unfamiliar scenario, but this was different. I wasn’t being fit for a retailer’s catalog or campaign, but…