culture

Bossy black women stereotypes are plentiful in America, and on In These Times, Tamara Winfrey Harris asks if women of color can use Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s advice with success. According to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of the self-described feminist manifesto Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, this disparity in power…

The New Yorker‘s David Remnick looks at what we have learned about the Boston bombing suspects and describes Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Twitter feed as a “bewildering combination of banality and disaffection.” Anzor Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who lived much of his life in Kyrgyzstan, emigrated a decade ago to the Boston area with his wife, two…

For five years, Massachusetts native Alyssa Lindley Kilzer received facials from Zubeidat Tsarnaev, the mother of the alleged Boston bombers, Dzhokar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. On her Tumblr page, Fides, she reveals a look inside the family’s home. Between 2008 and 2012 I got to know her pretty well. During those 2-3 hours I spent a…

On Friday, TMZ reported that one of the alleged Boston bomber suspects was “heavy into hip hop,” which angered a number of people in hip-hop’s community, including Twitter user @dopegirlfresh, who created the hashtag #tmzreports. This hashtag grew into a trending topic, in which users added sarcastic and fictitious lines to the #tmzreports conversation. Buzzfeed…

Sunday marks the first impact of the government’s sequester on the Federal Aviation Administration, reports NBC News, and it probably will mean big hassles for travelers. In fact, come Sunday, fliers may get a firsthand look at the impacts of the automatic budget cuts put in place by Congress last year. As part of the…

After his dramatic capture on Friday, the surviving alleged Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev may be charged while he’s still in a hospital bed, reports CNN. Federal terrorism charges against Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev could be filed soon, even as he remains hospitalized, a Justice Department official told CNN on Saturday. The 19-year-old could…

For Lauryn Hill, the pressure is mounting. As the singer prepares to face sentencing for tax fraud next week, she is also being sued for eviction by her New Jersey landlord, reports the Daily News. Hill, 37, stopped paying rent on the mansion last month and the landlord is demanding an immediate settling of her…

(The Root) — Boston is a diverse, complicated and rugged city. As a transplant to Boston from Los Angeles, I will say honestly that one does not easily or quickly warm to this city and its ways. Boston makes you want and earn membership. Los Angeles will always be home for me with everything that…

Jai Stone explains at Essence how a long history of rejection led her to have a “come-to-Jesus meeting” with herself on this controversial issue. I’m going to start with an urgent gripe of mine: Every time I turn around, the mating habits of African-American women are being scrutinized. There is always some broken-down bundle of…

At the Huffington Post, Binta Niambi Brown shares excerpts from her correspondence to friends this week that reveal reasons to rejoice in humanity’s endurance. Some have said this week that we are forever changed — that Boston will never be the same again. Others have countered that saying, we will recover, that we are not…