culture
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20 Things 50-Year-Old Black Men Get to Do Without Giving a Damn
The realization that I’m officially closer to 50 than I am to 18 hit me while I was playing basketball last week. My legs were feeling especially springy, so I decided to actually try to dunk instead of doing the nonchalant, rim-grab, “almost” dunk thing I do to convince people—myself included—that I can still dunk if…
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When Nia Long Told Larry King That J. Cole Wasn’t Too Young, I Lost My Mind
To say that Nia Long is a national treasure is an understatement. Long has been a part of most of our lives since at least the mid-’90s, when she played Beulah “Lisa” Wilkes on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and when a visionary Ice Cube saw fit to cast her in cult classic Friday. Thank…
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My God Too: New Campaign Launched at Morgan State Spotlights LGBTQ Life on HBCU Campuses
“Gender is more than just being a man or a woman. Gender is what you identify as, as a person,” says Damilola Louwole, 21, a senior at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She dresses and identifies as a masculine woman, and says that people don’t understand. The Cambridge, Mass., native also says that at a…
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Scandal Recap: Playing the ‘Trump Card’
Scandal’s presidential election is in full swing, and the candidates drop like flies in this episode, which is appropriately titled, “Trump Card.” On the Republican Side Billionaire bigot Hollis Doyle is leading the Republican field, and Olivia Pope and Abby Whelan have agreed to a cease-fire so they can team up to take Hollis down, but…
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The Real MVP: TV Movie About Wanda Durant’s Life Offers a Powerful Tribute to Single Moms
Superstar Kevin Durant was sniffling, getting teary-eyed and speaking with a cracked voice toward the end of his acceptance speech in 2014 after winning the NBA MVP award. And he hadn’t even mentioned his mother yet. He was talking about his brothers, his friends and his grandmother, thanking them for their love and support as…
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Empire Recap: She’s a Bad Mama Jama
Forget the American Sound Awards—Empire has a new entrant in the “worst parent” competition. Lucious is horrible, but in “The Lyon Who Cried Wolf,” his mama makes him look like an amateur. Let’s go! Lucious and Cookie torpedoed Harper Scott’s profile on him, so the writer got even by giving Andre evidence that his supposedly…
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#RapedByMorehouse: Allegations of a Rape Cover-Up at Spelman Spark Controversy
Many young women and men arrive at Atlanta University Center, that bastion of black excellence and prestige, believing that it will provide shelter from the violence, sexual and otherwise, that lies beyond its gates. In January, BuzzFeed’s Anita Badejo, in the investigative report “Our Hands Are Tied Because of This Damn Brother-Sisterhood Thing,” delved into…
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Captain America: Civil War Is the Blackest Movie Marvel Has Ever Made
In the last few years of the Obama era, the phrase “ __ is the blackest thing ever” has become a bit overused. Beyoncé’s latest video is the blackest thing ever! This meme is the blackest thing ever! Barack/Michelle just did the blackest thing ever! And so on, and so on. The problem is that…
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Mom of the Year: Holly Robinson Peete’s Reality Is All Too Real
We were first introduced to Holly Robinson Peete as the doe-eyed doyenne from 21 Jump Street in the ’80s, a brown girl on TV who used to bust wayward teens with heartthrob Johnny Depp. Fast-forward 30 years, and Peete is now the mother of four, married for 20 years, an entrepreneur working on her own lifestyle…
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Wintley Phipps Is Inspiring Dreams by Keeping at-Risk Youths Out of Prison
Wintley Phipps is a force of nature, standing amid a children’s choir, belting out the gospel classic “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The performance, at Tuesday night’s 15th annual Power of a Dream Gala, was for a glittering crowd gathered to share his passion for keeping at-risk children out of prison. “When…