culture
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Malcolm X Tells His Story in New Documentary Featuring Rarely and Never-Before-Seen Footage
In front of a rapt audience at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Malcolm X’s third daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, talked about witnessing the assassination of her father at Harlem’s Audubon Theatre and Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965. “I’m told my mother placed her entire body over my sisters and me that…
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On the Duality and Double Consciousness of Black Panther
Through my multiple viewings of Black Panther (four so far), I become aware of certain traits of the characters, their ideals and how the actors’ portrayals of them shed light on the struggles that black people and the world at large experience with tradition vs. technology, and other dichotomies. They stand out to me because…
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My Name Is Myeisha Is a Dramatic Hip-Hop Musical That Tells the Heartbreaking Story of Tyisha Miller’s 1998 Murder
On Dec. 28, 1998, police officers in Riverside, Calif., opened fire on Tyisha Miller as she lay unconscious in her Nissan Sentra. The 19-year-old was driving with her 15-year-old friend when the car’s tire went flat and the duo pulled off the side of the road. After a stranger drove Miller’s friend to get assistance…
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What I Learned From My Week as a Conservative
Two years ago, as part of an assignment, I was white. I didn’t change my skin color or anything, but I drove across country for three days into Mexico in a van with eight white men. After three days, we camped out in a remote, untouched wilderness for 12 days, hiking 75 miles total, with…
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Why It Hurts When the World Loves Everyone but Us
I’ve been processing seemingly contradictory emotions since the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. I am at once in awe of and humbled by this youth resistance movement and its solidarity efforts, and yet almost indescribably devastated. This feeling of devastation goes beyond the tragic and preventable loss of life; it is connected to the loss of…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Confederate Ancestor Is on Monuments; Who Did He Own?
The debate over Confederate monuments inspires one woman to find the descendants of people her memorialized ancestor enslaved. Dear Professor Gates: I just read your previous column regarding the Confederate general Wade Hampton III, of whom I am a direct descendant. In it, you addressed whether there was a connection between Gen. Hampton and a…
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Snoop Dogg Doing Gospel Confuses the Hell Out of Me, but I’m Not Mad at These Bops for Christ
When I got a press email announcing that Snoop Dogg had a gospel project, a double album titled Bible of Love, on the horizon, I immediately took a screenshot of the message and forwarded it to a few friends and posed the same question: “When did that nigga get saved?” Granted, perhaps I was a…
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America: Wakanda for White People
Before most of black America pulled their dashikis over their head and threw kente cloths over their shoulders for the Black Panther premiere, they had collectively anticipated the premise of the movie with an unnatural excitement. Much of the hype had nothing to do with the storyline or the fact that the Marvel Universe had…
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There’s a Theory That if Black People Buy Guns, It Could Stop the NRA’s War on Kids; It Won’t
Before one begins any discussion about the gun debate, it is necessary to dismiss the slow-thinking zealots from the room by pointing out that two things can be true: I can believe that Church’s fried chicken is actually deep-fried Triceratops raised on a secret Jurassic Park-type farm, and it tastes delicious. I also believe that…
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Audiences Across Africa Hail Black Panther for Humanizing Black Characters
On Sunday night, I sat in a crowded room in Canal Olympia Téranga, the only movie theater in Dakar, Senegal, that was showing Black Panther. With all the seats around me occupied, I waited to see what the “black people” in the movie would look like, what they would sound like. Would they use that…