culture
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How My Play Cousin Stopped a Mass Shooting and Disproved the Myth About Good Guys With Guns
I used to believe that one of the stupidest narratives in existence was the National Rifle Association’s assertion that “the only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I also believed that turning mass shooters into celebrities creates more mass shooters. But I no longer…
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A Word About Louis Farrakhan and Tamika Mallory
Women’s March Co-President Tamika Mallory’s public image has been taking a drumming all week since news broke of her attendance at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day, during which Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a speech with anti-Semitic commentary. The speech was delivered at the end of February, but Twitter went ablaze last weekend after…
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Meshell Ndegeocello Is Right About Bruno Mars Being Karaoke, but I’m Bopping Anyway
Meshell Ndegeocello did not mince words when asked about my beloved Puerto Rican Frankie Lymon, better known as Bruno Mars to the rest of y’all. In an interview with Billboard to promote Ventriloquism, an album of covers, the singer-songwriter and musician made clear that she wasn’t impressed with Mars’ performance of the “Finesse” remix featuring…
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I’ll Always Love Big Poppa: How Biggie Smalls Helped Me Understand My Parents’ Deaths
On March 9, 1997, rapper Biggie Smalls, born Christopher Wallace, had his life taken way too early. He was 24 years old. He was gunned down after leaving an industry party in Los Angeles, six months after the death of rapper Tupac Shakur. Being from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and seeing how this entire New York City…
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Tracing Your Roots: Did Racism Force My Ancestors to Hide Their Love?
Family lore about a great-grandparent’s interracial relationship lines up with clues in census records. Dear Professor Gates: My paternal grandmother, Caroline “Carrie” Fogg Farrar, was from Raleigh, N.C. She was a product of a relationship between her mother, Mary Elizabeth Fogg (who we had been told was 100 percent Cherokee), and a white landowner named…
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It’s Hot to Be Unapologetically Black … Until It’s Presented Like Tiffany Haddish
Once upon a time (somewhat) long ago, I had a hankering for Popeyes Chicken during lunch hour at work. It was one of our extra-busy days, so I needed to do a grab-and-go. As the promising waft of Louisiana lust soothed my nose, I was hit with a wave of heaviness: “Wait, do I really…
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The Retroactive Healing Power of A Wrinkle in Time
I was expecting director Ava DuVernay’s new sci-fi/fantasy film A Wrinkle in Time to be magic. I’d seen her achieve as much in her other films with far less capital behind them than the history-making, $100 million budget that Disney provided this time, so there was no question that this film would be gorgeous. I…
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Mourning the Living: On Finally Winning the Lawsuit Against Ebony Magazine
Have you ever had a feeling like you were mourning the death of something that was still alive? On Feb. 27, after months of back-and-forth, canceled court dates and a stringing along that felt as if we were never going to come to an agreement, 43 writers settled their lawsuit with the once powerful Ebony…