When Tom Bradley first ran for mayor of Los Angeles, he had to contend with white voters’ real apprehension about casting a ballot for a black man. As Seth Greenfield, a writer who worked on Bradley’s mayoral bid says, that meant addressing that fear directly in campaign ads.
Last night’s other Major Event, for those who could pry themselves away from the presidential debate long enough to realize it, was the return of ABC’s stranded-crash-survivor series, Lost. Now in its fourth season, the show made an exciting reappearance — thankfully providing a brief reprieve from the ongoing new-episode drought and making good on Read More
January is notoriously the dumping ground for Hollywood’s crappiest offerings, but this year they’re on some whole other mess. The best thing about the apparently unwatchably bad Meet The Spartans has been reading the many, many angry reviews. They’re all like, ‘This movie might be the natural conclusion of capitalism’s fundamental, inexorable problems —- and Read More
Crash, the singularly awful film about race and implausibly stupid coincidences that inexplicably went on to win the Oscar in 2005 for Best Picture, is about to become a television show. Resolved: I’mma vote for whichever presidential candidate keeps this booshee from happening.
Pabst Brewing Co., the company responsible for the revolting swill hipster ambrosia that is PBR, is trying to give the brown-bagged forty some ‘edgy’ cache by marketing to the asymmetrical haircut set.
I was thinking about Stacia’s post on the “Black Audit” of the Oscars. I’ve tried to make a list to count how nominations for Oscar went to African-Americans (I keep losing count at around forty). Dave Chapelle once joked that incontrovertible proof of the entertainment industry’s back-asswardness on race could be found in the Read More
I remember it well, the year the Academy Awards got too Black for comfort. Some might say it was 2002, the landmark year that Whoopi Goldberg hosted, Denzel finally won his long-deserved Best Actor statuette (for Training Day), Halle Berry became the first black Best Actress for Monster’s Ball, Will Smith was nominated for Ali, Read More
We can almost picture it: a huddle of newsmen in a windowless room in Orlando, sniggling over the mock-up of their next magazine cover. First they’re casting furtive glances at one another and making clucking noises, each afraid to offer up a real opinion. Then, all at once, they start to notice their gazes strengthen. Read More
With undoubtedly good intentions, penned a roundtable feature in The Boston Globe on Nas, The N-word, the NAACP, and generational conflict in black America. State-of-black-America clichés ensued.
A study by University of Iowa researchers says black women’s magazines give crappier advice about weight loss than ‘mainstream’ magazines. The study says that black women’s publications are more likely to suggest fad diets and ‘faith’. Great, considering that at least 70% of black women in the U.S. are overweight or obese.
