culture
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Lupita Overcame Her Color Issues. But What About All the Other Lupitas?
Receiving Essence magazine’s best breakthrough performance award for her role in 12 Years a Slave Thursday afternoon, Lupita Nyong’o delivered a poignant revelation about the rejection of her own dark complexion that plagued her childhood. “[M]y one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned,” she said in a confession,…
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Michigan Man Convicted of Killing 4 Women He Met Online
A courtroom erupted in cheers and sobs Friday after a jury convicted 25-year-old James C. Brown in the brutal deaths of four women, who were killed after meeting him through ads on an adult website, the Detroit Free Press reports. Statements like “my baby got justice,” and “they know” echoed throughout the courtroom as relatives…
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Watch: Obama and Biden Move for Let’s Move!
In celebration of the fourth anniversary of Let’s Move! the first lady last week asked people of all ages to show her how they move through their everyday fitness routine, how they are making better food choices or how they are helping move their community toward new standards of health for our kids. She even…
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Illinois Child-Welfare Chief Steps Down After Paternity Scandal
Arthur D. Bishop looked good on paper, but apparently that was as far as it went. He was appointed last month by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn to run the state’s Department of Children and Family Services, but stepped down Wednesday following a series of Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ reports that revealed a theft conviction and…
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Ignoring the Crisis of Cutting and Self-Harm Among Black Children
Today is Self-Injury Awareness Day. It’ll hardly get a passing mention across most African-American media platforms because it’s not a “black issue.” On the contrary, it is. I’m the mother of a loveable 15-year-old daughter. She’s bubbly and funny. She wears me out reenacting scenes from High School Musical and Twilight. She’s astute for her…
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Satirical Blog Offers Up Little-Known Black History Facts
The satirical blog Little Known Black History Facts has developed a large following since it first launched in 2012. This year, controversy surrounded the blog—some claimed it disrespected Black History Month. We sat down with the blog’s creator, Tracy Clayton (a former writer for The Root), to get her take on the controversy. The Root:…
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Why an African-American Director Wouldn’t Have Cast Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave
If there was any doubt left that Lupita Nyong’o is the Cinderella of this award season, it was erased by Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue. Not only did she land a slot on the issue’s coveted cover (she was one of six black actors included this year), but an article about Hollywood’s most powerful stylists dubbed…
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Conned Florida Inmate Gets Former Lawyer's Home
Things are looking up for a former Florida inmate who was cheated by his own lawyers and abandoned in prison, the Raw Story Reports. Patrick Coulton claims he was forced to accept a 15-year plea deal for drug conspiracy charges in 2008, his attorneys, Peter Mayas and Emmanuel Roy, promising that they could get the sentence…
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13-Year-Old Posts Illicit Pics Before Being Fatally Shot by Friend Playing With Gun
Cartrail Robertson posted pictures of guns, weed and wads of cash on Facebook, showing off things that no 13-year-old boy should be surrounded by. Hours later he was dead, and police believe he was accidentally shot when he and one of his friends were playing with one of the guns and the weapon fired off,…
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Man ‘Comes Back’ From the Dead at Funeral Home
Walter Williams was pronounced dead on Wednesday at 9 p.m. in his Lexington, Miss., home. He was subsequently put in a body bag and transported to the Porter and Sons Funeral Home in a hearse to prepare for embalming. But Williams wasn’t quite ready to pass on just yet. According to ABC News, the elderly gentleman…