culture

Twin actresses Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Tamera Mowry-Housley have a new product for eliminating stretch marks called Stretchy!, Clutch magazine reports. The product is an offering from their company Need Brands, which creates products for new moms. But writer Yesha Callahan says you can save money and make your own that works just as well. Nowadays,…

A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that Americans consider blacks more likely to be racist than whites and Hispanics in this country. Really? Mind you, these results come on the heels of the Supreme Court decision that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, which essentially was put into place in the 1960s to stop…

When the BET Awards aired on Sunday, one of the more notable fashion choices was worn by Jamie Foxx. The Academy Award-winning actor wore a simple T-shirt with an image of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie emblazoned across it. Nothing flashy, but certainly powerful — and, apparently to the people at Fox News, controversial. Spotted…

Almost 19 years after Essence magazine launched its first festival in New Orleans to “party with a purpose” and celebrate black culture, music and people, the Associated Press reports that Essence Fest may be facing new competition. Like Essence this weekend, last weekend’s BET Experience, held in Los Angeles, had Beyonce as a headliner. It…

Deadline Hollywood has obtained a moving letter that director Lee Daniels wrote to Warner Bros. Entertainment CEO Kevin Tsujihara urging him to screen The Butler. Daniels explains that he has spent four years working on the film, which tells the dark and beautiful story of our nation’s racial history. It’s a last-ditch appeal to retain…

(The Root) — The prosecution did not meet its goal of resting the case against George Zimmerman on Wednesday. That may be a good thing for the state because prosecutors arguably have not met their burden of proving that Zimmerman murdered Florida teen Trayvon Martin. On the eighth day of testimony, the state presented the…

Arguing that the last thing African Americans need is for one of their own to speak down to them, Ebony‘s Michael Arceneaux checks CNN’s Don Lemon for urging blacks to stop using the n-word, describing it as a cultural term of affection. … Also, for the millionth time, even if you don’t agree with the…

(The Root) — You can read this essay in its entirety — plus the thoughts of 40 other prominent African Americans from the worlds of the arts, medicine, religion and academia — in the anthology Where Did Our Love Go: Love and Relationships in the African American Community, available online and wherever books are sold.…

The Washington Post‘s Jonathan Capehart says it’s despicable that people are circulating a photo of tattooed Los Angeles rapper The Game and saying it’s Trayvon Martin. He’s says it a vicious attempt to defame the slain teen by portraying him as a thug. People! Listen, and listen closely. The photo you’re still passing around via…

(The Root) — A lot has changed since 1903, when W.E.B. Du Bois described black Americans as possessing what he called a “double consciousness,” caught between a self-conception as Americans and as people of African descent. As he put it in The Souls of Black Folk: “The Negro ever feels his two-ness-an American, a Negro;…