by Kimberly Foster @KimberlyNFoster

What Black girls and Black women produce can rarely be recreated convincingly because the work we've put into defining and refining our aesthetics is not often recognized. In a new web series, Yaba Blay elevates the parts of Black Girl Culture that those who move through it might take for granted.

Professional Black Girl pays close attention to the extraordinariness of our daily lives in short conversations that span multiple generations. Each episode is a chat with a niece, girlfriend, sister, or auntie. Until you watch, you might forget how cathartic is is to watch a beautiful brown face dive into the minutiae of her hair care or reflect on her style evolution.

 Blay reminds us that Black Excellence doesn't have to look like degrees and professional achievement; it thrives in the extraordinariness of our daily lives.

We talked to Dr. Blay about the project and the importance of these celebrations.

For Harriet: Where did the idea for Professional Black Girl come from?

Yaba Blay: It was actually a little bit random. I started using the hashtag on Instagram and Facebook anytime I would see a cutesy video of little Black girls dancing or pictures of what I considered to be iconic Black hairstyles. I was just using it to kind of note that there was something else going on, a professional level of Blackness that we were seeing.

Then, this summer I started working on a web series that I am developing called Adventures at Beauty World. My original idea was to end each episode with a professional Black girl highlight, where I would talk to a Black woman about her hair, and her hair history, and talk about how it connected to her identity of repping Black girls and Black hair everywhere she goes. As I started filming and talking to more and more women and girls, I felt like it was something of its own, so I decided to make it its own series.



FH: I love the diverse array of people that you highlight. How do you chose who you're going to spotlight in each episode?

YB: What's interesting is that I'm connected to all of these women as friends. The first person I thought of was Akiba Solomon. We actually became friends through Facebook years ago. I had always been a fan of her work and her writing, and then we became friends on social media. I remember one night she posted a picture of herself in high school, and she had stacks in her hair. We were on this thread for hours talking about everything from stacks, to finger waves, to Pink Oil Moisturizer, and Isoplus Oil Sheen. It really connected us. I came to find out we're the same age. We graduated from high school the same year. It was like a shared experience that was really centered on our hair histories.

I knew Akiba had to be on there, and have this conversation with her. I also just realized, that many of my own friends are professional Black girls as well. Everyone featured, I'm connected to in some way.

FH: The phrase "Professional Black Girl" has a certain kind of class connotation to it. I'm wondering if you ever think about the ways that Professional Black Girl might be interpreted as an embrace of respectability or as elevating a certain kind of Black woman.

YB: I've definitely thought about that, and in using professional, I was trying to try to flip the language in a particular way. I think I've always been a Professional Black Girl, but I recognize being in the academy, getting a PhD, having to move in certain circles--it's almost like we hide our true identities in certain spaces. There this kind of vibe that we have to act in a particular way and that for many women is not their genuine selves. You put on this performance to seem professional, to be accepted, to elevate towards success, and I've always rejected that.

In using "professional," my intent was to give us new ways of thinking about professional. It's almost a question of who determines what professional is. How do we recognize what it means to be professional? For me, because I do center  blackness in all of my work and in my identity, it was more about noting that there are professional levels even to being ourselves.

I've noticed, particularly since the project launched and the t-shirts launched, I think for some people there might be some concern, some confusion, even I know one sister said that she kinda cringes when she sees the word, but she gets it. I definitely see how that's possible without the broader context, without folks getting into the series and seeing how we're talking about it, or maybe not even reading a blurb about it; I can see how that can happen.

FH: I'm wondering how you personally balance navigating all of those parts of your identity? What was your journey? Or was there a journey for you to accepting that you can contain multitudes, so to speak?

YB: I think there was a journey, but I do recognize that my journey is probably unlike most Black women in the academy in that I got my PhD in African American studies from Temple. Temple has long been a very black and Afro-centric space. In my experience, I didn't have to code switch.





FH: I thought Temple was an HBCU for a time, when I was younger.

YB: I did too. I think it's probably because of Bill Cosby, because it was in Philly, and it's really in the middle of the hood. From the outside looking in, given the neighborhood and the regular folk that are around, one might think that.

No, it's a PWI, but I was definitely in a bubble being in the department of African American studies. Being in Black studies, being at Temple, and conferencing at Black conferences I never really had to hide those pieces of myself.

I started at an HBCU and ended up graduating from a predominately white school. My first Masters was from the University of New Orleans, which is also predominately white.

There is a sense that there is an appropriate time to be our fullest self. I've never felt like I was completely hiding myself or performing something that I wasn't. I'm very aware that there are many sisters who do and feel like they have to.

Some of the feedback that I've gotten has been interesting. The thank yous are bigger than thank you for entertaining us. It's more so, thank you for freeing us.

I had a woman who is a nuclear physicist email me to say thank you because she's always been torn about who she is in her real life, and then who she has to become when she goes to work.

For me, it just feels like we have to claim it. It feels like we spend a lot of time feeling some type of way when people of other cultures and races rock our stuff. It's easy for us to be [like]. "Oh no, Kylie Jenner. You can't wear that lace front wig with the corn rows," "No, you can't call these styles that we've been wearing since forever all these new names and claim it's something new when they're ours." My thing  is that we don't have to wait to respond or to react and tell people, "No, no. That's ours," if we just live and claim it.

I do think a part of that is some of the shaming that we do of ourselves and our community. We call it ghetto or we call it ratchet. Basically saying that we shouldn't be repping or rocking these things in public because they're not respectable. or they're not acceptable, or they're not professional. Yet, we feel some type of way when people outside of our community do it. My thing is rep it all the time, not just in response to when you're trying to check somebody else. Find the joy and the power in the things that are ours.

Professional Black Girls, in a lot of ways, is very much connected to hair. Hair is so much a part of this identity. For me, we are some of the most creative people on the planet when it comes to hair especially. I've gotten sucked into Instagram, and different hair videos, and different hair gurus online. Watching the things that they're able to do with our hair, I'm like, "How to we sit and come up with this stuff?"

For me, that's the "professional" level. When we think of what professional means. When we honor and respect people for being the top of the crop, if you will, in whatever their respective careers are, we've recognized that they've trained in it. We recognize that they spent many hours perfecting their craft. For me, that's not just about the things that we learn in college or grad school or the things that we become trained to do quote unquote "professionally." Think about out hair stories. For me, again, it's just about recognizing the power that is, just in us being.

by Kimberly Foster @KimberlyNFoster

Breaking into journalism is hard. In the age of instant opinions, everyone think they're a writer. But making a living crafting ideas and telling stories takes a grit and skill that few possess. If you're not well-networked or well-resourced, you'll have to claw your way into the big leagues. And most, simply, don't make it.

Bené Viera might not say she's there, but she is certainly on her way. With each byline she cements her place as a creator of culture.  The woman behind some of ESSENCE's biggest cover stories, Bené's success in an industry that wasn't made for Black women to tell their truths reminds us that anything worth having won't be acquired without dogged determination.

I caught up with her to talk about how she's building a career of note while staying true to herself and honoring her gifts.

Why do you write?

At this point, I think writing is not something that I just do for a living. It is also who I am. I just needed a space to be able to get the thoughts out of my head and to be able to convey whatever it is that I want to say. Whether it is for me personally, whether it is a cathartic process, or whether it is about any particular thing going on in the world. I write to stay sane. If I did not write, I don't know what my life would look like. It is interesting because I have always written. I used to write poems. I have old journals where I was writing terrible rap, but I never wanted to be a writer. I don't know that I had the language or even the vision of what that life would look like. I always thought I was going to be an attorney, which is why I majored in English in undergrad. I was going to be the female Johnnie Cochran. That is, literally, what I would tell everyone.

It didn't click that I was going to actually become a professional writer until I was maybe about 24-years-old. That kind of changed my life. I had always had this dream of being this big time attorney, and that is not what happened. And I love telling stories. One of the main reasons I went to journalism school as opposed to just saying, "Oh, I can write without a journalism degree or I can write fiction" is because there is a clear void in how marginalized communities are covered, if we are even covered. I just really wanted to tell stories of A) black people and B) of women in ways that I did not see them being covered and being talked about. That is why I specifically went into journalism. I just knew that broadcast wasn't for me, and that writing was something that I enjoyed.

What clicked for you at 24 years old?

At twenty four, I was studying for the LSAT. I graduated at twenty one. I was just ready to leave Nashville, which is my hometown. I was like, "What am I going to do?" We had a family reunion in Atlanta, and I was talking to my cousin who is a big time investment banker who went to school with President Obama and his sister who is an attorney. They were like, "I just don't think you want to be an attorney. I think you think it sounds good, I think you just want to do it for the money and what status you think it holds."

I was really taken aback by that because I was like, “no, I am really passionate. I want to be a civil rights attorney." They were like, "Well you know that a lot of attorneys work seventy to eighty hour weeks. Not all of them are making great money, and you might not really be arguing in a courtroom." I was like, "Oh no, oh no. If I become an attorney, I have to be arguing in the courtroom, I don't want to just be doing briefs and paperwork, no." My cousin's wife recommended that I read Newsflash by Bonnie Anderson. They were like, “You are just very opinionated, and you are always writing notes.” Back then, Facebook was the platform where you could write your thoughts, and I was always writing notes.

I get back home, I read Newsflash, and then I read Volunteer Slavery by Jill Nelson, who was one of the founding Black editors of Washington Post Magazine. It just clicked. I was like, “No, I am going to be a journalist, I am going to grad school!” The family reunion was in May, I probably didn't start taking it serious until September or October. By January, I was in grad school. That was how fast I moved once my mind was made up. It just clicked. I read those two books, and I was like, “Writing makes so much sense, I already do this. I want to tell stories.” I just started applying for graduate schools.

I got into the five schools that I applied to. I chose Indiana University. They have one of the top five journalism programs in the country. From there, I just studied journalism.


Law is a very safe profession. You can tell anybody that you are a lawyer, and they will be impressed by you. You can tell your family that you want to be a lawyer, and they will support you. They will cheer you on. Were you worried about the perception of the people around you when you tell them, "I don't want to be a lawyer anymore, I want to be a journalist"?

No, not really. I think maybe because I was going to get a graduate degree, that would supplement the feeling of ”She is just going to be this unpaid journalist her whole life. She is not serious about it.”

No one in my family or around me was like, “No, don't do that or you are never going to make any money.” I guess it seemed like a fit, so no I wasn't really worried about that. To be honest, I still hadn't completely given up on law school. I was in graduate school and going over to IU's law school, and talking to the dean. I think they had a Black dean at the time. I was talking to the dean, telling him my situation and why I hadn't really applied. I was taking LSAT prep courses. I still had this idea that maybe I could do both.

They do have joint law programs for some graduate programs. I was looking into that. I hadn't completely given it up until I graduated with my Master's. I finally packed up my box of all of my LSAT prep material and all of my application materials from various schools. I was like, "Okay, this dream is dead."

In 2010,  you graduated. At what point did you decide that you were going to move to New York?

Being in graduate school was one of the worst times of my life because it was a culture shock to me coming from an HBCU and going to IU. It was just really white. I didn't function well. The work was easy, I always got all As, but I just did not function well in that culture. There was a lot of covert racism happening to me. I was sick all of the time, I was just miserable. I didn't have a plan because I just wanted to get out of Bloomington, Indiana. I didn't have a plan, but I knew that I wanted to go to New York. I had interned while in graduate school at VIBE magazine. I was 24 and the oldest intern. After falling in love that summer with VIBE magazine, this was the heyday of VIBE with Danyel Smith as the Editor-in-Chief, I was like, “I have to move to New York. New York is the dream. If I can make it in New York, I can make it anywhere.” I graduated with no plan just elated to be getting out of Bloomington. I move home for, like, a month, if that, it might have been a couple of weeks. I was dating a guy - we met on Twitter, and he was in Long Island. He said, "Come visit me." He got my plane ticket, and I went to visit him in July and just never came back. I went with a suitcase and that is it. Very little money in the bank. I was there with him, and he just didn't want me to go back. I didn't want to go back. It is not like I had a job or anything waiting for me back home in Nashville. Who wants to go back and live with their mom?

You think you are big shit. You're like, "I got a Master's degree. I am good." You don't really want to move back in with your mom. He was like you should just stay here with me. We will give it three months, and if you don't get something, we will figure it out. I just never left from that August of 2010. I have, literally, just been here ever since.

Did you know anybody else in New York?

No, not really. I had the few contacts from my VIBE internship, but that is it. They weren't handing out jobs or like “Come work for us.” No, I really didn't. It was just me having this idea that I was going to make it as a writer in New York City. It had to be New York City because New York City is the media hub of the world. Publishing companies, magazines, [and] the print industry lives in New York. If I was going to make it anywhere, it had to be New York City.

This is interesting. You have moved to New York, you know your boyfriend, you know a couple of people from your VIBE days. How, then, do you become a working journalist?

At first, I literally am hitting the pavement, not even just for media jobs, I am going to record labels. As a writer, my skills are transferable, I can do very different things at different companies. I am hitting the pavement old school with my resume,  and going up to record labels. I think I went up to Bad Boy [and] Def Jam with my resume in my hand. They are like, “No, this is not how this works.” I couldn't even get past security. They were like, “Who are you here to see?" I am like, "Well, I just want to drop off my resume,” and they are like, “No.”

I am doing that. I am like, "Okay, that is not working. Let me go back to the drawing board." Then, I start using my IU database. All of these people that went to IU you can look up in their field. I see a few IU alum. One was at the New York Times. He was an older guy. One was the publisher of a magazine that I would rather not mention. Anyway, I send them emails, and I was like, "Hey I am an alum in the city. I would love to meet with you for coffee." I didn't even position it as I need a job, it was more I just want to pick your brain about the industry.

People agreed to meet with me that way. I met with an editor at Seventeen. She loved my resume, but didn't really have anything for me. That same magazine that I don't want to mention - because it is a huge hipster mag that everyone reads - he literally sat across from me and told me, "Your master's degree is antiquated." I was just blown away. He was like, "I would hire someone with reporting skills over you just because you have a Master's." A) Do I think that that was rude, yes. But B) I feel like it had a lot to do with the fact that I was a Black woman, I was younger than him, and I had more degrees than him. There was no other reason to say that, so it became a thing where I was being discouraged. I realized early on that I am not going to get a job with no experience. All I have is this internship and these clips from Indiana Daily News.

I had begun freelancing. I had a blog, but I was freelancing. There was this old site called the Fresh Xpress, that no longer exists. I was writing for them. Anytime I had an opinion on something, I was just writing for them, writing for them, trying to build my name. Some kind of way, an editor from Essence.com - I don't know if I pitched or they asked me to write something - whichever it was, I think she asked me to write something, and I did, and that was my first Essence.com piece. That piece led to a BBC news feature, and a spot on the Michael Baisden Show, and from there, I literally freelance hustled my way into the industry.

It led to bylines in Juicy Magazine and then, eventually, the website. It led to meeting editors at events and every time them assigning me something or me pitching something [and] turning around an almost flawless copy and being able to do it under a tight deadline, sometimes doing it early, so that they would remember me. That just, literally, spread, like building relationships, pitching, and being assigned stories based on my work ethic and just hustling my way. That is the true story of how I became a working journalist.

Oh, and there was Clutch, Clutch was big back then. I was writing for Clutch. We were doing various opinionated pieces that had a lot of reach. The internet and social media has really helped me take my career to the next level.

You have been published everywhere, you have interviewed incredible stories including your boo, Nas. I follow you. I follow your work. I know that you are down for Nas. How do you go from the hustling and knocking down doors to writing feature stories for Essence, the magazine not the website.

I moved to New York August of 2010. I did not land my first media job until April of 2012, which was at VH1. That was not based on any contacts. That was not based on a recommendation. That was based on my blindly applying. After VH1, I went to Centric. Again, it was just me on my own. I have not had hook ups where editors are like, "Yeah, come work for me."

Everything I have done has been on my own merit. I think it is important for people to know that. Sometimes, it takes longer to get where you are going when you don't have those connections and when you don't have people rooting for you. I literally know people who moved with every editor from job to job because of a relationship with one editor. That, just, has not been my experience. It took 18 months for me to get my first job. After VH1, after Centric, I always just maintained a working relationship at Essence. I had been doing news packages for the magazine, I was doing end of the year recaps, I was doing profiles, I had done this amazing Raisin in the Sun package with Diahann Carroll before she dropped out when Kenny Leon revived the play for Broadway. That was great.

What was the first cover story?

The first cover story was Shonda Rhimes. I had just been laid off, and it was May that year. Cory Murray emailed me, “Hey Bene, are you available? I need you to go to this shoot in the city. We are doing this big thing on Shonda Rhimes, and I just need you to go there and observe and stuff.” I am like, “Okay, why not, I don't have anything else to do. I am newly employed.” She sends me down there, I am still not really knowing what is going on.

The first day, we missed the first part of the shoot. I was like, "Okay, cool. Whatever." Cory hits me up again and was like, “You are going to have to do this story, and it is the cover story, and this is what we are looking for. You need to interview all of these people.” Mind you, I have never written a cover story. Not only am I going to interview Shonda, but I have to interview ten of the Shondaland “Thank God it's Thursday” crew and all fit that into a story.

I am completely overwhelmed. I know that I can not flub on this opportunity. They don't come around often. Cover stories are still very coveted in this industry, and I just can't disappoint Cory. The fact that she would trust me with a story of this magnitude, I have to deliver. I go the second day of shooting, and I am literally just in the midst of everything and pulling people to the side when they are free in between hair, and makeup and talking to them about Shonda. I had my questions prepared. I finally get Shonda, and she was just so amazing, and smart, and warm, which I didn't expect. She is like one of the most important show runners in television.

A few months go by after I turn in the story, and I don't hear anything from Cory at all. I am like, "oh okay, she probably hated it." I finally follow up with her like, "Hey, do you have edits for me, I am just wondering." She was like, “It was so flawless I barely changed anything. I sent it to the top editor, and we are good to go. You killed it.” When it comes in print, they get it before it goes live. The editor for Essence.com, Steven Styles, texted me. He was like, “You fucking killed it,” and he is very particular about writers.

by Ashleigh Shackelford

Earlier this month, Amandla Stenberg took over Teen Vogue to share her power and vulnerability in navigating a world that fails to represent the fullness of Black women. In Amandla’s powerful and necessary message about media and representation on the magazine’s Snapchat, she revealed for the first time to the world that she identifies as a Black bisexual woman.

Amandla wrapped up her powerful announcement with some inspiring words for a Black feminist future by saying, “This is just the beginning.”

Amandla is #BlackGirlMagic and her voice is an important one in the discourse around the representation of Black women and the representation of intersectional feminism. I do not contest that Amandla is a game changer. But I do have concerns about who we are lifting up as trailblazers of intersectional feminism during the era of #BlackGirlMagic.


In the sea of praise Amandla received for coming out as a Black bisexual woman, I started thinking about other pioneers in the movement for better and more diverse Black Girl representation. When we look at Lianne La Havas, Solange Knowles, Ava DuVernay, Zendaya Coleman, Willow Smith, FKA Twigs, and Zoe Kravitz, we are looking at artistic, carefree Black women who are redefining the limitations of Black womanhood. But as thin, light-skinned Black women, they also reaffirm a certain type of respectability and palatability.

Hood femmes, ratchets, and thotties are not represented by these women. Darker skin and bigger bodies are not represented within these women. It seems as though being woke, thin, and having lighter skin affords you a platform to speak on the issues important to Black women today—and praise for doing so.

But what about the rest of us?

While I celebrate Amandla’s powerful coming out and the acclaim she has received on multiple media outlets, I wonder about the Black women and femmes who will never get the same kind of space or praise of their queerness. I think about the many queer Black women and femmes who are conscious and understanding of their oppression enough to name it, but will never be put in the limelight of mainstream media. I think about all the queer Black femmes who must navigate the intersections of their identities with no platform to speak on the violence and experiences they live through. I also think about how speech—specifically African American Vernacular English—is a barrier to accessibility and respectability for the spectrum of representation that we are so desperately lacking.

In analyzing examples of ratchet feminism and hood politicking, the women of the Love & Hip Hop franchise come to mind. Especially those who have explicitly stated they’re attracted to and/or engage in relationships with other women—their queer identity is often erased. Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta’s Joseline Hernandez openly stated that she is bisexual. But there was barely any media coverage around her vulnerability and strength in living her truth because her platform was limited through the gaze of black femme ratchetry and hypersexualization. Joseline is not only seen through the limitation of hoe-ness, but her body type (bigger breasts, bigger butt, but still socially acceptable thick) does not read as an alternative Black girl to the gaze of white supremacy because of the oversexualization of her body. Her light skin and beauty allows for her to have the limited platform she has now, but if she was darker or had different features, her trajectory would be very different.

Another example is Sassy on Black Ink Crew, who is an out brown-skin Black lesbian, yet she is not seen as a role model within the current representation of #BlackGirlMagic, though she has stated in interviews that she wants to be a role model for other queer Black femmes/women.

The reason why Amandla and Black women/femmes like her are able to maintain this status as a radical alternative Black girl (or in Solange’s words, the “non-comforming Black girl”), is because they are seen as being palatable to white supremacy. However, being palatable to white supremacist gaze is a violent reality. Media studies and popular culture studies through a Black feminist lens show us that often white media platforms determine who to anoint as a leader or who to give the spotlight to. When these white media platforms determine this, their decision simultaneously feeds into the capitalistic motives of white supremacy and into the viewer’s ideas of white supremacy’s hierarchy of worthiness. If we’re consistently seeing light skin, thin “alternative” Black girls being thrusted into the spotlight as the primary revolutionaries in creating change in an anti-Black, misogynistic world, then we’re receiving the message that only by being closer to white in presentation and performance is how we can see “change” happen.


Much like the often ignored limitations within the Carefree Black Girl Movement, there are major shortcomings when it comes to the representation and visibility of magical Black girls and femmes.

What about the bisexual trap queens, the queer hood femmes, or the sexually fluid thotties?

Hoodness, poorness, fatness, and nigga-ness are not represented in our mainstream #BlackGirlMagic movements. This is expanded through other forms of oppression as well, such as colorism, respectability politics, beauty politics, sizism, ability, and transphobia. It’s time we lift the limitation around our ideas of Black girl representation and Black girl magic in our aims to challenge the stigmas of being a Black woman or femme. In claiming our identity as a source of confidence and empowerment, we have to recognize that what/who we praise as radical and ground-breaking is politicized too. We have to understand that light skin, white gaze palatability, and thinness are privileges in representation. We can praise Amandla for her #BlackGirlMagic and still question where the rest of the Black femme representation is at.

Photo: Ben Toms / Teen Vogue

Ashleigh Shackelford is a radical queer Black fat femme based in Richmond, VA. Ashleigh is a cultural producer, body positivity advocate, pop culture enthusiast, and a run-on sentence repeat offender. They are a community organizer at Black Action Now and the director of Free Figure Revolution. Find more posts at: BlackFatFemme.com.

Since CaShawn Thompson created the hashtag #BlackGirlsareMagic in 2013, the phrase, often shortened to #BlackGirlMagic, has become a way for Black women to affirm each other. What began as a small online community, complete with t-shirts and hoodies, has now made its way to magazine covers and mainstream media.

This week, Elle published an editorial by Dr. Linda Chavers, "Here's My Problem with #BlackGirlMagic." The backlash to the piece was immediate.
For Harriet's editor-in-chief, Kimberly Foster, spoke with Chavers about the piece and the concept of #BlackGirlMagic.

This interview has been edited for clarity

For Harriet: How are you feeling?

Linda Chavers: That's a really great question. Hurt...bad, but it's complicated. I feel bad on the surface of things because I've read the comments. I got in my car on my phone and saw the reactions and saw that people wanted to smack me and pull me to the dumpster by my cuticles. I'm very visual, so I kept trying to picture how that would look. Then, the expressions of hurt and betrayal. I felt, I still feel really sad, very sad.

For Harriet: Let's start from the top. Were you happy with the framing of the article? Were you happy with the headline that was chosen, the image that was used, the tweets that were sent out?

Linda Chavers: It's funny, I don't think I even saw the tweets from Elle, but frankly, I saw nothing wrong with the headline. The image of the kind of dancer in the dark I had no problem with. I think I am so overwhelmed with the tweets, I actually did not even get a chance to see the official Elle tweets, so I don't know what the wording was for that.

For Harriet: Among the first responses and reactions to the article I saw were criticisms of the platform. Why Elle?

Linda Chavers: Honestly, Lord only knows how this is going to play out. I had already written the piece, and I'd pitched to Elle before. I've pitched that piece to other places. I'm not a full time writer. I write small pieces as a freelancer to pay my bills. I'm being very honest here. I don't make shit up. I don't do crap for crap's sake, but that's why I do what I do. I'm trying to write a memoir and I'm a freelance writer and I need to write. I honestly had not followed the controversy about Elle with the hairstyle thing. I know of the controversy overall and I agree with the criticism, like, oh, Black people, we've been doing for decades and a white woman who does it, it's oh my God, it's so cute. It's been going on for a long ass time and it's not specific to Elle. It's not. It's been going on since I was 9 years old. Frankly, if you ask me why Elle? It's because in terms of what I'm being criticized for. What I'm being criticized for has been going on for longer than I was alive and it's not specific to Elle.
For Harriet: I know for certain that if this piece had run in a Black publication, the response would be different.

Linda Chavers: I agree.

For Harriet: Not that the backlash would not have happened, but it certainly would have taken on a different tone.

by Leah C.K. Lewis

Some time ago, I was pondering this question: Do people of color unknowingly support entertainers who are bigots? We must, right? Unless an actor reveals his or her political views explicitly, we do not have a clue where they stand on racial issues.

“Who is Sandra Bland?” was spray painted on the confederate monument, affectionately called ‘Silent Sam’, that watches over the entrance to north campus at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. On a regular day thousands of people walk past the monument and for the two hours that I sat and stared at the sloppy words that marked the sides I noticed they all had one thing in common, no one had an answer to the question that was posed.

by Patricia D. Raspberry, Ph.D.

Earlier this year, I gave up Facebook for Lent. My decision was based, in part, on my desire to make a sacrifice that would actually feel like a sacrifice and not a convenient way to save money, give my liver a break or lose 10 pounds. As an admitted Facebook addict, I knew this was going to hurt.

by Kaila Philo

“I’m not African-American,” Raven said, in the now-infamous interview with Oprah, “I’m an American.”

Initially I, as many others on #BlackTwitter, jumped to calling Raven foolish, simple, or naive for shrugging off her blackness as if it played no part in who she is. While she’s lived in the Hollywood Bubble for virtually her entire life, she was still a major player in arguably one of the most important programs in black history, The Cosby Show. However, as I writer I began to understand why she’s so afraid (or possibly just tired) of being identified as a Black actress on Black TV shows.

In our white society, blackness can be limiting; it can swathe one in this indelible musk until it leaves nothing. In a sense, as Clover Hope noted in her Kendrick Lamar article for The Muse, blackness can be “overwhelming.”

by Jenn M. Jackson

by Anitra Winder

“What shall I tell my children who are black? Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin? What shall I tell my dear ones, fruit of my womb, of how beautiful they are? Where everywhere they are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black…?” — Dr. Margaret Burroughs, 1968.

by Bee Quammie


If you Google the phrase, “Not just a Black movie,” the results are intriguing. In media coverage for films like Repentance to the patriotic Red Tails, or films like Think Like A Man and Dear White People, someone (whether it be an actor, filmmaker, or review writer) ensures that we, the audience, know this isn’t “just a Black film.”

by Felice León


By now you’ve heard of the fight involving seven teenage Black girls (six suspects and one victim) that took place in a Brooklyn McDonald’s. The video was uploaded online and went viral, making national headlines—not only for the fight itself, but the media’s frenzied obsession with the teen girls involved.

“And when he get on, he’ll leave you’re a** for a white girl.” —Kanye West, “Golddigger”

Mr. Kanye West has never spoken truer words, as he became the latest celebrity to add his two cents after ex-girlfriend Amber Rose made comments about 25-year-old rapper Tyga and his rumored relationship with minor Kylie Jenner, which caused a Twitter beef between Rose and Jenner’s older half-sister, Khloe Kardashian. West’s recent interview with The Breakfast Club shed some insight on how the rapper chose to place the whiteness of the Kardashians on a pedestal in comparison to black women like Amber Rose.

by Jenn M. Jackson


There may be nothing more intimidating – and therefore offensive – to White folks than Black Americans who set boundaries for their personal space and public privacy.

Increasing numbers of Black celebrities, entertainers, and athletes have forcefully established themselves as people rather than objects for commodification and public consumption. From Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, to Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, to Beyoncé Knowles Carter, Blacks in the public eye have demanded respect for their personal space in ways that disrupt White Supremacy and challenge the control of the White Gaze.

I love Orange is the New Black. The writing, dialogue, and character development are superb. It is one of the first shows to honestly depict the complex and intersecting realities of women, significantly women within the prison industrial complex. Many critics celebrate its significance in employing actresses from diverse backgrounds. As a matter of fact, I do not know if there is another scripted television show today that represents such a wide range of women.

by Jasmine N. Salters

I woke up this morning to articles and blog posts updating the world on hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and singer Solange Knowles. It seems that we should all be aware that the two were spotted jewelry shopping together on Tuesday afternoon, just a day after the now-infamous videotaped elevator-altercation-turned-virtual-minstrel-show went viral. According to my Facebook newsfeed, Jay-Z was attempting to solve his “100th problem” with an expensive gift.

Last week, Variety Magazine unveiled their list of powerful New York-based women in Media. Nine Black women made the list, and Iman was honored for her humanitarian work in Somalia at a luncheon on April 25.

Soul songstress Jill Scott graces the cover of the May issue of Ebony magazine. Jill looks spectacular and her son Jett couldn't be more adorable, but it was headline "SAVING OUR SONS" in bold, capital letters that caught my attention and gave me pause.

Michael Baisden, Roland Martin, Soledad O’Brien and Constance White have all either been fired or stepped down from their respective positions in the communications field. With their departures the future of African-Americans in mainstream media is uncertain.