Apparently, the RNC isn’t as shortsighted as I thought. This afternoon former Maryland Lt. Gov Michael Steele was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee (and as such, official leader of the Republican Party) after several rounds of voting. This is doubly significant: not only is Steele the first African-American to hold the position, but we Read More
Just a reminder for everyone interested in discussing Oscar Wao with us: we added a tab to the top of the page for the reading group, so that the posts on the book don’t fall and nobody accidentally stumbles upon spoilers. The comments will open on Feb. 15, and we’re going to alternate between fiction Read More
Amnau Eele, credited as the co-founder of the Black Artists Association, has made headlines by criticizing Michelle Obama for not wearing any African-American designers during the inauguration in a report to Women’s Wear Daily. This does not mark the first time Eele, a “divination artist” has made headlines with unusual claims.In 2007, Amnau Eele and her Read More
slb wrote an essay on what being raised by a single mother (mis)taught her about the male-female dynamic. Matriarchy, she said, taught her not to invest fully in men. Conversely, a matriarchal upbringing taught one of the men she dated to rely too heavily on her. Her piece read like a blanket statement with which Read More
Another really famous and important author we’ve never got around to reading has died. Goodbye, John Updike. It seems like only yesterday we skipped your latest short story in the New Yorker. It’s not personal. We never get around to reading that stuff.
The New York Times decided to delve deep into the juicy depths of female sexuality. Meredith Chivers, a 36-year-old sexologist, has probed the subject long and hard, wrapping herself into contradictions trying to answer the question posed by Freud a century ago: “What does a woman want?” Ok, sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, Read More
I’ve been meaning to go on a rant for sometime about Henry Blodget’s really dumb idea to “fix” the New York Times. Among his ingenious new ideas: cut the staff, raise subscription rates, and charge an online fee. Gee, cutting staff! No one’s thought of that! Newspapers haven’t been cutting staff for the past Read More
Amid all the praise of First Lady Michelle Obama’s fashion choices for the inaugural festivities, the Black Artists Association is taking her to task for not wearing anything by an African American designer. Cofounder Amnau Eele said Wednesday she will make a formal appeal to the First Lady’s office on behalf of the BAA. “It’s Read More
(A still from Lee Daniels’s “Push.”) In grad school, I took an elective called Autobiografiction in Black, a course in first-person narratives illustrating a broad pastiche of Black life. The first novel we were asked to read was Sapphire’s Push. I read it in three days, growing more and more uncomfortable by the page. I Read More
[via.] Upping that MPG. How much of a roll is your boy Obama on? California has been angling to make cars more efficient for a minute now, and it makes up such a big part of the market for cars that if it set its own (tighter) fuel efficiency standards for cars, it would effectively be Read More
