culture

Phill Branch, writing at Shadow and Act, worries that Miley Cyrus’ twerking debacle could lead to random acts of “blackness” by whites. “I just hope it doesn’t lead to me being twerked at without my permission,” he writes. The moment Hoda Kotb or Barbara Walters grabs hold of some formerly underground colloquialism or dance move,…

(The Root) — In the eponymous biopic Winnie Mandela, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson has mastered a new art form: emoji acting. With a stilted script, distracting soundtrack and costume changes rivaling Liberace’s, Hudson’s Winnie has little to do in the movie except look at things. Winnie Mandela, which opens Friday, is the first of two…

(The Root) — For many young brides, having a wedding featured in the New York Times wedding announcements is a dream come true. But having one of your most private secrets revealed is a nightmare. In the case of one bride, however, she chose to share one of her most private secrets in her wedding…

Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, on Tuesday voiced strong criticism of a potential U.S. strike in Syria, according to the Huffington Post. He issued a stern challenge to the U.S. to deal with gun violence at home before venturing abroad to help other countries. “The United States has no choice but…

Under pressure from online critics, a 30-year-old Tallahassee, Fla., man deleted GhettoTracker.com, his crowd-sourcing experiment “in travel guide segregation,” Gawker reports. Users who navigate to the site receive the following message: “This site is gone. It’s not worth the trouble.” In an effort to save face after the GhettoTracker uproar, the creator put up Good Part…

Kenny Leon is arguably Broadway’s great black hope. The theater director has garnered a reputation for bringing black stories center stage, directing Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and works by August Wilson, including Gem of the Ocean and Fences. For Leon’s next act, the director will tell a different story about black America,…

This past Saturday, Kanye West entertained the friends and family of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the wedding of Nazarbayev’s grandson. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the Human Rights Foundation, an international human rights group, says that an artist as charitable as West should have declined the money and the offer.  “Kanye West is…

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drummer for the hip-hop band The Roots, which tours around the world and is the house band on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, is easily recognizable. He’s a large guy — wide and of above-average height. Then, of course, there’s his trademark Afro, which sprouts like an antenna from the back…

(The Root) — “I’ve been dating this guy for five months now. He is very nice, but I have never met his parents. It seems that there is always an excuse why we can’t see them. I guess I’m being paranoid, but I’m not sure he wants his folks to meet me, since I’m a…

(Special to The Root) — This is an excerpt from Vladimir Alexandrov’s recent book The Black Russian, which tells the true story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, the son of former slaves in Mississippi who became a millionaire entrepreneur in czarist Moscow and the “Sultan of Jazz” in Constantinople. (For more on Thomas’ incredible story, check…