culture
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R-E-S-P-E-C-T the Queen: 10 Times Aretha Franklin Stole the Show
Editor’s note: This week we’re celebrating the birthdays of phenomenal performers who not only share late-March birthdays but who also have voices that have defined their generations. On Monday we honored the Queen of Funk, Chaka Khan. Today it’s the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Then, on Thursday, it’s the boss, Diana Ross, and on Friday, the…
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George Zimmerman Says God and Justice Are on His Side
If the moral arc of the universe really did bend toward justice, I would be reporting on George Zimmerman’s incarceration for one of the numerous crimes he’s committed since he gunned down unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on that rainy night in Sanford, Fla. Instead he’s in the news for a disturbing interview in which he…
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I’m a White Mom With Biracial Children, and What I Do With Their Hair Is No One’s Business
Maybe I’m just not the type of parent who likes unsolicited advice or people getting in my personal space, but one of the things that I’ve noticed about parenting a mixed-race child is that the general public seems to have no boundaries. When you become a mother, you notice that the boundaries people usually have…
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In Confessions of a Peppermint Pattie, a ‘Whiteblack’ Girl Asks if She’s Black Enough
When Barack Obama arrived on the national political stage and emerged as a presidential contender, more than one observer asked whether the young, biracial, Ivy League-educated U.S. senator was black enough to be the first African-American president. And this kind of authenticity challenge isn’t new: Many other black Americans—upwardly mobile and highly educated—are sometimes seen…
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Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly Is a Sonic Tribute to Black Lives
If the phrase “Black lives matter” conjured a sound, it might be something like that of the music heard on Kendrick Lamar’s new album, To Pimp a Butterfly. Not to try to connect Lamar to a movement of which he’s not necessarily a part, or to artificially box him in, but if we could take…
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Happy Birthday, Divas!
Editor’s note: This week we’re celebrating the birthdays of three phenomenal performers—Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and Mariah Carey—who not only share late-March birthdays but who also have voices that have defined their generations. First up, on Monday, is the Queen of Funk, Chaka Khan. On Wednesday we’ll honor the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, and…
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Ain’t Nobody Like Chaka Khan: 10 Songs That Will School a New Generation
Editor’s note: This week we’re celebrating the birthdays of phenomenal performers who not only share late-March birthdays but who also have voices that have defined their generations. First up is the Queen of Funk, Chaka Khan. On Wednesday we’ll celebrate the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, and on Thursday we’ll celebrate the boss, Diana Ross.…
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Growing Up White Until a Family Secret Revealed She Was Not
Lacey Schwartz grew up as a white, Jewish girl in the predominantly white community of Woodstock, N.Y., raised by Peggy and Robert Schwartz. But what she didn’t know at the time was that her biological father was black. The idea of “passing” for white has long been a part of African-American culture. But Schwartz’s story…
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You’re Gonna Love What Taraji P. Henson Did After Her Son Was Racially Profiled on Campus
Taraji P. Henson apparently protects her son in real life just as Cookie, her engaging character on Fox’s Empire series, fiercely protects her sons. In the February/March issue of Uptown magazine, Henson recalls how her 20-year-old son was once profiled by police at the University of Southern California. After that, she says, she found a…
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‘I Go to UVA,’ Martese Johnson’s Cry of Millennial Disbelief
Earlier this week I participated in a PBS NewsHour Twitter chat on race and millennials. We discussed members of the University of Oklahoma’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter, a white fraternity founded in the antebellum South, being caught on video singing one of their traditional songs about hanging “niggers” from trees. The chat was partially built…