culture

Dear Drs. Lewis and Gail Wyatt:  I am a 31-year-old housewife with a 2-year-old son (from a previous relationship). I married my husband essentially because he was kind, supportive and had the potential to be a good father. He was wise, unselfish and patient. However, I never loved him or enjoyed sex with him. I…

Toward the end of his life in 1972, African-American artist Norman Lewis wrote an eye-catching pitch to a New York gallerist: “I have read that you have not stopped discovering talent and helping artists. Your valuable assistance is needed—I have talent … ” That Lewis felt the need to be “discovered” so late in his…

Calling it “the best assist I’ve ever recorded in my life,” Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert helped fiancee Teyana Taylor deliver their baby girl earlier this week in the bathroom of their home, according to his Instagram account. Iman Tayla Shumpert Jr. was born Wednesday at 6:42 a.m. after Taylor went into labor before her mid-January due…

Twelve years before I released my debut album from prison, I was a baggy-jeaned middle schooler, rapping about how to get there. In the early 2000s, hip-hop was still under the spell of hypermasculine gangsta rap, and I emulated its heroes. Unfortunately, the “zero tolerance,” heavily policed Los Angeles school district only reinforced my narrative.…

My boyfriend planned a surprise birthday celebration for me lasting over the course of three days. The first night, only two of the 10 friends that RSVP’d showed up. On my actual birthday, none of my friends showed up. On the last day, four of my friends showed up. Everyone else in attendance was a…

1.  Infants are what would happen to an adult if you made it super tiny and then gave it a liter of Jack Daniels. The tiny part I knew already, but the drunken part is something I’ve discovered in the last couple of weeks. Because you treat infants the same way you’d treat a friend…

My earnest devotion to the Love & Hip Hop franchise is quite well-documented. When it comes to the general thoughts that consume me any day of the week, it goes 1) ranking various chicken establishments by seasoning and breading, 2) praying that Serge Ibaka will finally respond to my DMs and 3) rabidly consuming the latest…

I was raised by two civil rights activists, one of whom was born in the ’30s in the Deep South, the other raised in Newark, N.J. It goes without saying that the very idea of “talking back” was unheard of in my household. We couldn’t even look back, much less talk back. So why does…

In the Heart of the Sea is the latest film from director Ron Howard, a special effects extravaganza with a rumored $100 million price tag. With a star-studded cast, it tells the story of the whaling ship Essex, which was attacked by a giant killer whale in 1820, a survivor’s tale so stirring that it…