Ta-Nehisi posts a video of Gene Siskel (still deeply missed) and Roger Ebert critiquing Clueless when it came out: He adds: “Poorly drawn movies tend to depend on poorly drawn characters. And poorly drawn black characters almost always descend into stereotype and cartoon. Not that I’m an expert on Teen Movies, but I can’t really Read More
In graduate school, I had to attend a series of talks from magazine editors and one* of them, from Harper’s, faced a tough question from a friend of mine who asked a lot of tough questions of our guests. She read through the masthead’s list of all-male, mostly Anglo-sounding names and asked, “Where’s the diversity?” Read More
After spending 35 years in prison for a rape that he didn’t commit, James Bain was finally released Thursday morning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Bain made five requests for DNA testing before a judge granted his motion. The testing eventually cleared him of the crime. Obviously, the state of Florida owes Bain Read More
I don’t know what happened to this cat. He put out one criminally slept-on album in ’94, and then disappeared. I think this was the lead single, and he also did the album’s production. I used to bang this all the time, but no one i knew was checking for him.
My earliest reading of Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry, I believed and still contend that this novel is a defense of dark-colored skin. His portrayal of the light-skinned antagonists and the bevy of characters who subscribe to the “light is right” mindset are one-dimensional and often vicious. This is similar to what Richard Wright does with Read More
A couple weeks ago, Shamara Riley wrote a column in which she tried to explain why black women should empathize with Sarah Palin, because Palin and black women have so many experiences in common. You see, like many black women, Alaska’s erstwhile governor is a Christian and says what she thinks. And like many black women, Palin Read More
If you haven’t heard, Bill Cosby has assembled an outfit called the Cosnarati (no, seriously) to spit “positive” rhymes about working hard and being responsible. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it’s probably a bad idea coming from a dude on record as not being a fan of the genre, and who would Read More
Adam Serwer on liberal discontent over the state of healthcare reform: I think this is basically right. For all the havoc Joe Lieberman has caused, it’s worth remembering that an ideal bill for liberals, with a robust public option, was always a longshot even with his participation. A couple months ago, Latoya Peterson and I Read More
Question(s) for the room: Why did The Jacksons release a music video in the late ’70s? Who would have been playing it? And why was Michael ever unhappy with his face? Also, by mere happenstance, I recently found myself watching a few minutes of “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty,” the reality miniseries on A&E. In Read More
