culture
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Lee Daniels in Talks to Direct Richard Pryor Biopic
Lee Daniels is said to be in talks with the Weinstein Company to direct an as yet untitled Richard Pryor biopic, as a follow-up to last year’s box-office hit, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Weinstein Company, which produced and distributed Lee Daniels’ The Butler, reportedly will finance the project. Actors…
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Black Parents Forced to Fight for Justice For Their Sons
A year ago today in the small town of Valdosta, Ga., Kendrick Johnson, a 17-year-old junior at Lowndes High School, was found dead, and three stories emerged. The first was told by the police about a teenager trying to retrieve a shoe out of a rolled-up mat in the high school gym. He fell in,…
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Mother of ‘Thug Cycle’ Toddler Speaks Out
The mother of the Omaha, Neb., toddler who was seen cursing at adults in the so-called Thug Cycle video is defending her son, saying he is no different from any other child, according to CNN. “He had a clean diaper, the house was clean and like they said, kids curse; every kid does it,” the…
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Q-Tip Developing Series With Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill
What do Q-Tip, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill have in common? At first glance, probably not much, but now the unlikely trio is said to be working together to develop a TV series about the rapper’s experiences with hip-hop collective Native Tongues, Rolling Stone reports. According to the article, the show will focus on the…
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Calm Down, Gabrielle Union Didn’t ‘Blame Herself’ for Anything
In a recent interview with Glamour, actress Gabrielle Union opened up about the lead-up to the split during which she says her now-fiance, Dwyane Wade, impregnated his ex-girlfriend, Aja Metoyer. “[When Dwyane and I broke up briefly in 2013], it was because of distance and scheduling,” she told the magazine. ”I finished filming the show…
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Searching for LeRoi Jones, Finding Amiri Baraka
The fact that his name was LeRoi signified something to me. There was no Norton Anthology of African American Literature in the world yet; Toni Morrison had not yet won her Nobel Prize for literature. All we got in an early-1980s freshman composition class was “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note.” And the only reason I knew…
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Franklin McCain, Civil Rights Sit-In Icon, Dies
Franklin McCain, one of the “Greensboro Four” who sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in North Carolina, sparking the sit-in movement in the 1960s, has died, NPR reports. McCain reportedly died Thursday at the Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro after a brief illness. There are conflicting news reports about his actual age, but he…
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Oprah Winfrey on Working With Lindsay Lohan: This Is What Everyone Warned Me Would Happen
Oprah Winfrey has added her voice to the resounding chorus of people in Hollywood and beyond who claim that Lindsay Lohan is notoriously difficult to work with, according to New York’s Daily News. There have been delays and problems in the making of Lohan’s new reality show, which is set to debut on OWN (Winfrey’s…
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I Expected African DNA Results. Why Are Mine Chinese?
“I used AfricanAncestry.com to trace my matrilineal and patrilineal DNA. Through my brother, Keiffer Mitchell, Jr., the patrilineal results were traced to the people of China. We were amused by the result, and somewhat disappointed, given that we expected results from Africa. I took the maternal DNA test and it traced to the Ibo of…
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Transgender Teen Facing Criminal Charges for Fighting Bullies
A 16-year-old California transgender student who stood up to three bullies, who she claims have taunted her for years over her gender identity, is facing criminal charges. The other three teens were only suspended, the New York Daily News reports. Jewlyes Gutierrez, a student at Hercules High School in Hercules, Calif., says she snapped during…