culture
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Mad at Rihanna for the N-Word? Don't Be a Hypocrite
Ernest Owens, in a piece for the Huffington Post, encourages those who are upset about the singer’s controversial Instagram post to take a look at their own online lives. Oh no, this is not to excuse Rihanna from saying a word that is unacceptable and derogatory, but as we all liked her marijuana smoke blowing images…
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LGBT Athletes of Color Paved the Way for Jason Collins
Writing at Colorlines, Jamilah King says that this movement has been in the works for years and has a diverse set of characters. Sexuality and sports make for a complicated mix. Throw in race and the persistent obsession with what it means to be a man in America, and the conversation becomes impossibly loaded. That’s…
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I Found One Drop: Can I Be Black Now?
(The Root ) — “I recently availed myself of my university’s online resources and did some genealogical digging about my white conservative family. It turns out that one of our ancestors was an African-American slave who passed as white. His is an incredibly powerful story about a dark chapter in our nation’s history, and I believe…
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20 Things Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Wishes He Knew at 30
In a piece for Esquire, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shares widely applicable pieces of advice that have little to do with the sport that made him famous. From the commonsense (become financially literate) to the unexpected (do more yoga and watch more TV), he says he wishes that he could climb into a time machine…
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Jason Collins Proves 'Outing' Isn't Needed
(The Root) — Jason Collins received kudos from the president, first lady, a former president and many others for having the courage to break one of America’s last great barriers. He became the first openly gay active player in one of America’s major professional sports. Collins has handled the situation with pure class, and refreshingly,…
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Jason Collins: Black, Gay and a Real Man
(The Root) — The measure of man is not easily calculated, nor apparent to the eye. Assessing character requires levers of the heart and mind — rendering scales wholly useless. Martin Luther King Jr. posited that the ultimate measure was to be determined not by where a man stood in times of comfort and convenience…
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Push to Change Washington Redskins' 'Derogatory, Racist Name'
Council of the District of Columbia member David Grosso is preparing to introduce a resolution calling on the Washington Redskins football team to change its name, the Washington Post reports. Grosso says that the current name is “derogatory” and “racist” (many would agree with him there), and that it’s “time we take a stand and…
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Issa Rae on an All-Black Version of 'The View'?
Coming soon from Magic Johnson’s Aspire network: a show called Exhale, which Jezebel described on Tuesday as “essentially a View hosted by five black women instead of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the voices in her head.” Exhale’s five co-hosts, according to Variety, are: journalist Angela Burt-Murray, actress and comedian Erin Jackson, helmer Issa Rae, author and…
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Celibate and Black? There's a Dating Site for You
Dating sites geared generally to singles looking for love are so 10 years ago. At least that’s what it seems based on an Essence interview with the founder of BlackCelibacy.com, which is designed for — you guessed it — people who are not just black, not just black and Christian, but are black and Christian…
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4 Tony Nods Each for 'Motown,' 'The Trip to Bountiful'
The 2013 Tony Award nominations were announced Tuesday morning in New York. Some highlights for African-American theater: Actresses Cicely Tyson and Condola Rashad are up for honors for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play and Best Performance in a Featured Role in a Play, respectively. Plus, the productions in…