The Beautiful Load: A Visual Poem
This poem is an ode to the African woman’s head scarf and all that she carries… I grew up watching my mother tie huge pieces of fabric on her head. […]
Category Archives: Beauty
Brazil’s New Problem With Blackness
As the proudly mixed-race country grapples with its legacy of slavery, affirmative-action race tribunals are measuring skull shape and nose width to determine who counts as disadvantaged. PELOTAS, […]
Brown Girls Do Ballet
I took ballet classes when I was a little girl. I remember going to the store to buy a pink tutu. I remember lacing up my slippers. I remember doing […]
TAIYE SELASI: I Am Not My Hair
I leapt from high-maintenance hair to an all-natural crop—and found a tangle of emotion and politics caught up in all the curls. Recently my best friend, Heather McGhee—the […]
International Blackness vs. Homegrown Negroes: Lupita, Chimamanda, Thandie and me
Debate about skin tone is often cyclical and absolute — light skinned equals privilege, dark equals rejected. “She is very white!” Revered Swedish film critic Jannike Ahlund watches a clip […]
Why Brown Girls Need Brown Dolls
There have long been debates regarding Disney’s lack of diversity and further, the lack of diversity in dolls for children of color. While reading an article on this subject matter, […]
Talking Her Out of Skin Bleaching Won’t Work
Race Manners: This choice is one symptom of a society obsessed with whiteness. Being judgmental misses the point. “I have a cousin who’s lived here in the United States for […]
Afrocentric Confessions 