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The Solange-Curated Bridge-s at the Getty Center Is a Hypnotizing and Ethereal Viewpoint on Transition
There aren’t many experiences that have left me so truly speechless that they’ve stayed with me forever.
Cue the unmatched Solange Knowles and Bridge-s. Brought to Los Angeles’ Getty Center Museum by Dropbox and Getty in partnership with IAMSOUND, Bridge-s explores the themes of “transitions through time.”
From Getty’s press release:
Exploring themes of transitions through time, Bridge-s is a...
Barack Obama Calls Out ‘Cancel Culture’ in the Era of Donald Trump
For all eight years of his presidency, Barack Obama was the epitome of class and grace, ever speaking to how to bring opposing sides to common ground, whether during a beer summit or in offering a hand to recalcitrant Republicans .
Now, the nation’s forever president is calling out “cancel culture,” telling an audience at the annual Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago that shutting down a...
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Don’t Get It ‘Twis’-ted: Sign Language Interpreter Steals the Show at a Twista Concert and Shows Importance of Access for Deaf People
Twista may be the fastest-rapping MC in the world, but how good is he with his hands? His sign-language interpretive hands, that is.
Probably not half as good as Amber Galloway Gallego, the sign language interpreter hired to bring Twista’s show to life for fans who are deaf or otherwise hearing-impaired.
At a concert Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., Galloway Gallego showed some real rap battle...
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Movie Review: How the Black Panthers Fought to Make Black Lives Matter in the ’60s and ’70s
If you think the Black Lives Matter movement has been vehement, consider what the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense did in response to a similar litany of police brutality, institutionalized racism and social injustice. In May 1967, 26 members walked into the California State Assembly openly carrying weapons. It made quite a scene and loudly announced to the country that black people were...
It's All Love: Sorry, Met Gala, the Love Ball Is the Invite We Really Want to Score
The category is: LOVE.
There’s camp, and then there’s camp, honey—and, as evidenced by this year’s Met Gala, not everyone gets it. But as Lena Waithe pointed out that night, the LGBTQ community has always gotten it—in fact, she maintains that black drag queens and the ballroom culture they and their brown counterparts birthed is the genesis of what we now recognize as “camp.”
But Billy Porter...
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Check Out America’s Worst Police Departments
Almost half of Americans hate their police department.
In a new study, a little over 47 percent of Americans gave their police precinct a grade of D or F. The states of Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, Virginia and Georgia are among those ranked highest in the number of people reporting negative perceptions of police.
The results were pulled together from social media by drug treatment and awarness...
Grand Jury’s ‘Rare’ ‘No Vote’ in Tamir Rice Shooting Points to Bigger Issue
The process of a grand jury indictment is largely mystifying to the average citizen. When the grand jury decided not to indict Cleveland Police Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the process of the grand jury fell under the microscope. When news broke Wednesday that the grand jury never actually took a vote on the matter, according...
Why It’s Dangerous to Say Sandra Bland Didn’t Look Like Someone Who Would Commit Suicide
Can you look at someone and tell that she or he wants to die?
In the wake of Sandra Bland’s death , the most vocal reason given for why she didn’t hang herself in a Waller County, Texas, jail cell after being brutalized and arrested by state Trooper Brian Encinia is this: Sandra, who was passionate about the sanctity of black lives; Sandra, beautiful, intelligent and accomplished, who had...
For Officers Charged in Freddie Gray’s Death, Protesters Say ‘Orange Is the New Black’
Stop the protests? Unlikely. That was the sentiment at a gathering hosted by local ministers in Baltimore Sunday after six officers were charged in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.
“We will continue protesting until these officers trade their blue uniforms for an orange one,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant told the multiethnic, multiracial crowd of a few hundred protesters gathered at City Hall...
You Are Not Your Disease
In late 2005 I was hospitalized over the Christmas holiday at a facility in Los Angeles.
I went by choice, willingly submitting myself for observation, medication, therapy and testing like a good guinea pig. I needed to go, after all. I had been misdiagnosed, and finally, by staying for almost a month, I would get a lifesaving diagnosis. I was bipolar type II.
While I was in the hospital, a...
The Responsible Celebrity: Actors, Filmmakers Talk About Art, Activism at Blackout Festival
What responsibility do artists have to our changing times?
That was one of the questions that came up throughout the first annual Blackout for Human Rights Music and Film Festival in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Blackout for Human Rights is a collective of activists, artists, filmmakers, musicians and more who are committing their time and talents to address human rights violations in the United...
‘Make America Great Again’ Billboard Sparks Controversy in Miss.
At first glance, the "Make America Great Billboard" on Highway 80 in Pearl, Miss., right outside of Jackson, looks as if it was bought and paid for by the Klansmen and/or Fraternal Order of Police that endorsed President-elect Donald Trump.
But looks can be deceiving.
WJTV.com reports that the billboard was paid for by For Freedoms, "the first artist-run super PAC," which believes "it's time...
$65,000,000 for a New Private Jet, Creflo Dollar? Negro, Please
On the streets of any hood in the United States, Creflo Dollar, the kingpin behind World Changers Church International, would be called a hustler. Behind the pulpit, however, he’s called pastor, and if that’s not a sin, I don’t know what else to call it.
Dollar, who made headlines in 2012 for allegedly assaulting his then 15-year-old daughter, has now launched a full-fledged campaign to...
Lil Wayne Is an Underappreciated Rap Legend
Seventeen years ago this week, Juvenile released “Back That Azz Up” (or “Back That Thang Up,” if you were a baby trying to make babies on the dance floor of a high school gymnasium). The descending chords in the intro cause an immediate Pavlovian response. Men crane their necks like gazelles hearing a rustle in the tall grass, and women ready their stances for the possible lone pity twerk...
The Inevitable but Predictable Backlash Over #BlackLivesMatter
When Black Lives Matter activist Bree Newsome climbed the pole on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds and took down the Confederate flag, I had one of two thoughts.
Thought No. 1: That was amazing.
Thought No. 2: I hope people wait at least a few hours before they start their backlash.
A few hours. That’s all I wanted. Just a little moment to enjoy this bit of black-girl greatness, climbing...
Ben Carson Endorsed Donald Trump for a Job, Which Is One of the Blackest Things He’s Ever Done
You can say many things about Ben Carson, the back-ordered, decaffeinated coffee machine who recently dropped out of the presidential race. Iconic surgeon. Popeyes enthusiast. Vigilante. Black History Month book-report muse. Delusional motherf—ker. But one thing you cannot do is doubt his blackness bona fides. Yes, his actual politics, if enacted, would have put America back to 1953. But...
Stuart Scott Spoke the Language of My Generation
We didn’t have to know you to know that you knew us, got us and embodied us. That you spoke like us and got the duality of being both a professional and a poet.
That a home run ball leaving the park wasn't “hi-yoooo!” it was “boo-yahhhh!” And you got the difference for us, the kids from broken homes with cousins named Pookie, who wrote out rap lyrics in our notebooks and signed our names in...
Straight Outta History: Director F. Gary Gray Speaks on the Brotherhood, Impact and Legacy of N.W.A
Straight Outta Compton, the story of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright, Andre “Dre” Young, O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson, Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby and Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson, collectively known as N.W.A, is finally on the big screen. And unlike previous black music biopics, this one, because it digs deep and even creates a film that transports audiences back to the look and feel of the rise of N.W.A in...
Harold Perrineau Responds to Criticism of Biracial Daughter’s Role in Jem and the Holograms
Harold Perrineau hit back at critics who say his daughter should not play an African-American character from the animated series on which the new film Jem and the Holograms is based because she is only half-black.
In a piece at The Wrap, he writes that his wife and the mother of his daughter, Aurora, 19, is white and he is black, leading some critics to charge that the teen is "not qualified...
Ever Had a Dream but No Idea How to Make It Happen? Harriette Cole Wants to Help
Every entrepreneur has that one big dream that he or she hopes to accomplish and build from the ground up. However, for some, whether because of an unsupportive system or because they’re holding on to the crippling fear of failure, achieving that dream may seem near impossible, and so they bury it.
Harriette Cole, “lifestylist,” author and all-around branding expert, is having none of it. She...