culture
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Girl, 5, Kills Herself With Gun
(The Root) — It was supposed to be a quick trip to the store, a 10:30 a.m. walk for a gallon of milk. On June 23 in New Orleans, Brandajah Smith — a dark-chocolate confection of a 5-year-old with a mind full of questions — needed milk for her cereal. But getting to the store…
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Skip Gates' 'Many Rivers' Premieres
(The Root) — “The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience,” says Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. Gates, who…
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Why Are Black Men on a Venetian Tomb?
(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. This week’s image features a detail from the…
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'12 Years a Slave' Was Too Much
(The Root) — On Friday I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. With a busy two days ahead, and a director friend insisting that the first day of a movie’s opening weekend counted more than the other days, I would catch a late-night showing of 12 Years a Slave. I mentioned my plans…
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All-Boys Schools Can Empower At-Risk Black Students
Single-sex schools can be advantageous for black boys, Freeden Oeur argues in a piece at CNN, and shouldn’t be considered more examples of segregation. After conducting research at an all-boys, nearly all-black school in the Northeast, Oeur found that single-sex schools can tailor their culture and programs for at-risk African-American males. Separation is not always a form…
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The 7 Ways Black People Respond to Black Films
When black films come out, Stacia L. Brown explains at The Prospect, the response of black audiences can be categorized in seven ways: “doubt, guilt, self-preservation, annoyance, anger, vulnerability and acceptance.” Brown discusses these reactions in the context of recent releases including 12 Years a Slave, Fruitvale Station, Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Django Unchained.…
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Black Men's Problem With 'Scandal': Interracial Dating
Jamilah Lemieux at Ebony magazine has a hunch that some black men’s resentments about interracial dating lie at the crux of their opinions of Scandal and the black women who adore the show. That’s the real reason they didn’t lose any sleep over Kerry Washington’s Emmy loss. Let’s go back to last month, when Kerry…
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Red Lobster Customer: Handwriting on Racist Note Is Not His
What do you call a person who, instead of leaving a tip at a restaurant, writes “none” on the receipt and instead jots down the n-word near the line asking for “Total”? A racist cheapskate would be fitting. But don’t call Devin Barnes one — he denies being the man who wrote the hurtful word…
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Black Woman's Cooking Invention Hits Mainstream
The day Mary Hunter, 73, of Gary, Ind., came up with the idea for a way to marinate the inside of the big roasts she would make for her fellow congregation members at Yes Lord Church, she knew she had invented a revolutionary cooking tool. But according to a profile on Hunter in the New…
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Fact-Checking '12 Years a Slave'
The difficulty of an adapting a book into a film is staying true to the original text. And, of course, those who have read a work prior to seeing the film will go into the movie making mental notes about what the film got right, what it got wrong and what it decided to keep…