culture

When the book came out in early March, few seemed to notice anything wrong. The first dozen reader reviews on its Amazon page were uniformly glowing, with many mentioning how they’d long admired the author’s blog. It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments is Amanda Marcotte’s first book, but the author is a…

Before we delve into the very closely matched NBA finals, which start Thursday, let me offer a parallel to the LeBron James situation. The superb year and frustrating end that he and his Cleveland Cavaliers experienced are very similar to the middle phase of the career of one the NBA’s all-time greats, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In…

That’s right, I said it! The “R” word. And no matter how politicians try to spin it, the fact is, we’re in one. Nationwide people are scrambling to stay employed, afloat and are tossing non-essentials off their fiscal boat. And it’s not just a financial toll; there’s the psychological impact of an economic downturn. Nothing…

Barack Obama is deeply indebted to Rev. Jeremiah Wright for two crucial elements of presidential campaign: The first is Obama’s Christian faith and the second is his work with black Americans on the South Side of Chicago. On March, Obama claimed that the video clips of Rev. Wright playing nonstop on television news “expressed a…

The 42-year-old, modern classical composer Joseph C. Phillips Jr. is a self-described “late-bloomer.” Now one of the brightest new lights on the modern classical scene, he studied music at the University of Maryland and began his career as an award-winning high school director near Seattle. He honed his gifts as a composer while he was…

Estelle, Shine I guess no one saw this coming since Paul Revere didn’t saddle up in a Dodge Charger flying down I-495 yelling that the British are coming. But they’re here, and it is a shame that American soul music sounds much better through European lungs. With Amy Winehouse “Elvis-ing” her way into the American…

When the prophesies finally turned out to be true—that they are making a movie, that all four girls are in and that there is going to be a wedding—scores of the devout laid in wait, salivating for more manna to rain down from the Sex and the City: The Movie mountaintop. But one particular crumb…

The close of the writer’s strike-shortened television season – the endless season finales and salacious sweeps week programming – has made me think about how far television has evolved. But as I thought, specifically about how African Americans are represented on television, I realized that I could still count the notable and inspiring black characters…

Yankee haters have had plenty of opportunities to engage in Schadenfreude in the last few years. The Bronx Bombers, a team that regards postseason success as a birthright, has become the biggest October underachiever. Since taking a three-games-to-none lead on the Boston Red Sox in 2004, the Yanks are 4-12 in the playoffs, and they…

“As to mixed marriages, the most delicate question of all, it is to be noted that 29 states – all those of the South and many in the Southwest – forbid it. In the North, such marriages are frowned upon, and represent an almost insignificant percent.” —The American Negroes, special bulletin published by the U.S.…