culture
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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…
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'When and Where I Enter': The Racist Expectations of Whites-Only Feminism
Following the New York primary Tuesday, dozens of New Yorkers pilgrimaged to Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery to place “I Voted” stickers on the headstone of suffragette leader Susan B. Anthony. This, of course, should be expected, since Anthony, along with her close friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many others, fought tirelessly throughout the 19th century and early…
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Prince Wrote a Slow Jam About Donald Trump and It Is Glorious
We all know that Prince was a brilliant songwriter who could make anything—from casual sex to partying down before the nuclear apocalypse—sound cool. That skill even applies to loathsome politicians like Donald Trump. Among the many musical treasures he left us is a song called “Donald Trump (Black Version),” which he penned for R&B group…
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I’m Not Happy That My Boyfriend Wants to Celebrate My Birthday on the Cheap
Dude asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I said, “Simple dinner.” He said “Fine, as long as it’s not pricey.” I was a little turned off by this. It’s not my intention to run through anyone’s money, but at the same time, I felt like a child being told I can…
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Scandal Recap: Jake, Who’s Your Daddy?
Some of my favorite Scandal episodes are the ones in which we dig into the back stories of the characters and find out how they came to be the sick, sordid individuals they are now—like when we found out that Cyrus Beene was once married to a woman, or that Huck had a wife and…
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Earth Day 2016: 5 Black Communities That Are Fighting Environmental Threats
In America, communities in the most polluted environments are often poor and/or made up of people of color, with race being the dominant factor. A report published by PLOS One in 2014 indicates that nonwhite Americans breathe in almost 40 percent more polluted air than white Americans. The issue isn’t just the air we…
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32 Photos of Prince We Love
To say that Prince Rogers Nelson was a musical genius would be a gross understatement. Prince was incomparable. A legend. A cultural icon. And the world lost him on Thursday morning. As we mourn the passing of one of the greatest performers of our time, we also honor and respect his legacy. Here is The Root’s…