culture
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This Season of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta Is Opening Up Conversations About Gender and Sexual Identities
During a recent academic media presentation, a colleague argued that reality TV hurts images of blackness more than it helps. Of course, I’d be foolish to argue that the way some shows are written doesn’t present questionable representations of black people, and particularly black women, but these shows can also create some teachable moments for…
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Beyoncé’s Lemonade Highlights the Pain of Infidelity and the Power of Forgiveness
Please let us survive this. Please let me survive this … I was on my knees, hands clasped, tears pooling in my palms as I tried to pray the truth away. I could barely breathe. The newfound fact of his infidelity was crushing. How could he do this—to me? I wasn’t sure what hurt more:…
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Why Black Women Should Have the 1st Glass of Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Explained
What is Lemonade? Lemonade is my favorite fruit-related beverage. It’s great with everything—raspberries, artificial raspberry flavor, oranges, iced tea, gin, vodka, post-fellatio conversations about groceries, etc.—which makes it both versatile and delicious. It’s also both the title of Beyoncé’s new album and the hourlong film accompanying it. Wait … Beyoncé has a new album? How…
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The Black Women Behind Some of Technology’s Most Influential Companies
The statistics are clear: There is a stark shortage of women in leadership roles at top technology companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. When it comes to addressing the lack of black women in managerial or senior roles within the industry, the numbers are grim. Despite their gross underrepresentation, several black women are paving pathways…
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My Year on the Road With Prince
I first saw Prince as an audience member back in 1981, when I was on a first date. My proper Bermudian beau and I had dressed in our Sunday best. We awkwardly sat front and center in orchestra seats watching this superhuman little being gyrate across the stage performing music that defied anything I had…
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Lemonade: A Searing Ode to Grown Black Womanness
Well, if anyone could move the conversation away from the tragic death of Prince this weekend, it’s Beyoncé, once a pop princess, now a fully grown queen who dropped her 12-track visual album, Lemonade, on HBO Saturday night (now available on Tidal). And far from being a “cool, refreshing drink,” Bey’s lemonade was a hot…
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9 Unforgettable Moments From Beyoncé's Lemonade
Beyoncé took her fans on an emotional journey Saturday night, through the rage and betrayal of a troubled marriage, the disappointment of a father’s daughter, the anguish of a mother who has lost a child to violence, and finally the redemption and healing of a black woman. Her so-called visual album, a collection of music…
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See Our African Ancestors Come to Life in ‘They Still Live’
What makes you … you? That’s the powerful question photographer Thomas “Detour” Evans is asking in his new exhibit that combines photography, African art and ancestry. The idea for the exhibit came from two seemingly unrelated events: Evans’ trip to Tanzania a year ago and a stranger he found admiring his photography at a Denver…
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Afrofuturism: What Does a Black Future Look Like?
In part 2 of The Root’s four-part video series on Afrofuturism, we get the perspective of Stacey Robinson, an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Robinson is a visual artist who does work around Afrofuturism and black sci-fi. He repurposes cultural images, historical events and futuristic ideologies and then adds…
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The Pain of Black Music Royalty Gone Too Soon
It’s hard to admit that there are things beyond the comprehension of the intellectual. It’s hard to explain the unexplainable. Not the death of Prince Rogers Nelson, a death we ultimately will understand. What I’m trying to make sense of is why, over the last 11 years, black America has had one devastating day after…