culture
-
As Black Transgender Women Continue to Die, It’s Time for a Call to Action
Already in 2015, two transgender black women have been killed: On Jan. 17 Lamia Beard, 30, of Norfolk, Va., died of a gunshot wound; and in Texas, 24-year-old Ty Underwood was fatally shot on Monday. Today the Human Rights Campaign Foundation—the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization—and the…
-
The Black Panthers and the Rise of Revolutionary Culture
Long before Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry for justice, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was demanding a similar call to action with “All power to the people.” The new documentary Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution reminds us that unfortunately, so much has not changed over the years. The revolutionary organization was…
-
How Kanye Went From Bush-Baiter to the Sartorial Don Lemon
What will it take for some people to see that Kanye West is no longer the same person who once declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”? For some, it wasn’t West’s comparison of his struggle with the paparazzi—likely not helped by marrying a person whose business model is largely rooted in narcissism and…
-
Black or White Misses a Chance to Move Beyond Stereotypes
Black or White is a film that tackles the subject of biracial identity through the lens of a hard-drinking, tortured white lawyer and a spirited, self-made black entrepreneur, played by Academy Award winners Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer. Despite Costner’s strong performance and a film intended to explore a complicated matter, director Mike Binder holds…
-
Sundance Is High on Dope
There’s no getting around it: The new movie Dope is dope (I know, but I could not resist). One would expect no less from the writer and director who brought us The Wood and Brown Sugar. Filmmaker Rick Famuyiwa has definitely redeemed himself after his underwhelming last film, 2010’s Our Family Wedding. “I made a…
-
Scandal Is Back: Here Are Some Predictions to Get You Ready for the Big Return
We made it, folks! We survived Scandal’s winter hiatus. Scandal finally returns on Thursday, and it’s time to find out where things pick up after the shockingly scandalous winter finale. To recap a recap: 1. Olivia Pope tried to kill her father (gasp!), and then 2. Olivia Pope got kidnapped (oh nooo)! The big question, of…
-
Ben & Jerry’s Founders Support #BlackLivesMatter in a Bold Display of Solidarity
If someone had told me six years ago that Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—the founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—would speak out against police brutality and anti-black racism with more conviction than the nation’s first black president, I would have laughed in that person’s face. But that’s exactly what’s happened. Speaking at their annual…
-
3 1/2 Minutes: How Gun Culture, Fear and Racial Bias Killed Jordan Davis
One of the timeliest and most relevant documentaries to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, this week may just be 3 1/2 Minutes. That is the amount of time it took for Michael Dunn, a white man, to argue with and then shoot and kill Jordan Davis, an unarmed black teenager,…
-
Woman Who Married Herself Says ‘Wedding’ Was About Self-Love
Over the weekend, news quickly spread of a woman who had staged an elaborate wedding ceremony to marry herself on her 40th birthday. Yes, you read that right. Herself. Yasmin Eleby, a kindergarten teacher in Houston, hadn’t been in a serious relationship for six years. But the lack of a significant other didn’t stop her…
-
Larry Wilmore’s The Nightly Show Is the Black Talk Show We’ve Been Waiting For
Last week, Larry Wilmore—host of Comedy Central’s new late-night gig The Nightly Show—began his monologue with this: “Man, all of the good bad-race stuff happened already. Seriously. There’s none left. We’re done.” But anyone who’s been paying attention to the fast-changing news cycle these days knows that Wilmore’s razor-sharp comedic timing couldn’t have come at a…