culture
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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…
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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…