culture

So far, there hasn’t been a challenge that Lupita Nyong’o hasn’t mastered. Whether it’s nailing her breakout role as Patsey in the unflinching 12 Years a Slave to Oscar perfection or owning the Broadway stage in Eclipsed, penned by fellow African actress Danai Gurira, her everywomanness has yet to fail. In Star Wars: The Force…

In the canon of black films, The Color Purple—released Dec. 18, 1985—will always have a space in the top 10. Based on the novel by Alice Walker and directed by Steven Spielberg, the film—lusciously shot and performed with an aching realness by an all-star cast—was heralded immediately as one of the most nuanced portrayals of…

“There are folks who think I’m just a writer, and that is absolutely untrue,” Kevin Powell begins. “I’ve been an activist for 30 years.” He has just gotten off the phone with a woman from Guyana who is seeking his help to obtain an organ transplant for her sick father in New Jersey. Powell, one…

Abigail Fisher is the average-est white woman in the history of average white women. Her averageness is so average, it’s aggressive. Enthusiastic. Transformative. It boldly goes where no average has gone before. She’s unambiguously average. Obnoxiously average. Disruptively average. If she were a character in Star Wars, her name would be Darth Average. She’s to “average…

Something in the way Sam’s Club CEO Rosalind Brewer said it, or a verb or two by the way she threw it, made a bunch of white people run scared into a corner. Correctly miffed by the absence of any female or “of color” representation at a recent negotiating table, Brewer went brave and did…

So. Sports Illustrated named Serena Williams its 2015 Sportsperson of the Year, the first time an individual woman has won the award in more than 30 years. In a lengthy essay, the publication lauded Williams’ remarkable professional accomplishments, then got to the more important reasons why Williams was chosen: “Because Williams kept pushing herself to…