After hearing Karen rave about Dorothy Koomson’s books for years, I finally remembered to check my local library for any copies of her work. I was fortunate enough to find two: Marshmallows for Breakfast When Kendra Tamale moves back to her native England after a stint in Australia, she rents an apartment and becomes enmeshed [...]

The black church has a history of being the pillar of the black community, and admittedly, most blacks–that is, blacks who consider themselves Christian–are pretty religious and/or spiritual. I have observed, however, in online conversations between black women and the issue of interracial dating, that a few of the black women conversation who are married [...]

Last year, Justine Larbalestier sparked a controversy and movement in the blogosphere over her cover for the US edition of her book, Liar, when Bloomsbury made plans to ship the books to our shelves with a vaguely Asian female on the cover. The big hoopla was that the narrator was a young black woman. A [...]

Hat tip to Shadow and Act “If” Black Women Were White Women August 23, 2009 In “If Men Could Menstruate,” Gloria Steinem makes the persuasive argument that “Whatever a ‘superior’ group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever an ‘inferior’ group has will be used to justify its plight.” For too long [...]

I first read the WaPo piece by Helena Andrews after googling her name when I saw the title to her upcoming book/movie, Bitch Is The New Black, on Shonda Rhimes’ IMDB page. I thought little of it, since the whole “educated black woman can’t find a man” schtick has filled the pages of Essence, Ebony, [...]

A few weeks ago I blogged on the images of love and our overall social conditioning to view black sexuality with uneasiness or even disgust. The comments were enlightening and informative and as I thought on them, I began to realize how much the issue with street lit, or even my opinions on the objective [...]

Even though I’ve read many historicals set in Asia or Africa or India, or any other area in the world that was colonized by Europe, I couldn’t help but feel a certain twist in my gut when I read the synopsis for an upcoming historical romance. Many of the images we have of Africa and [...]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZcUuGwKYc0&hl=en&fs=1] While it looks interesting, I take umbrage with the fact this documentary exists. It further goes to create this mystical “otherizing” view of blacks, if not causing people to assume that they will fully understand why black people “act like that,” and then fall into that patronizing trap of “I know what it’s like [...]

I had to laugh my ass off when I visited racialicious to discover the story of an upscale soul food restaurant’s battle for a liquor license. From the SoHo Alliance, we get such gems as:

Angelina Jolie has made headlines recently for her critique of Disney and their Princess franchise: “There still isn’t a Disney princess that’s African and it’s very difficult because our daughter’s getting into princesses right now and it upsets me,” she told OK! Magazine. Jolie has also expressed her desire to expose her adopted children to [...]