by Philip Obaji Jr, The Daily Beast
It is perhaps the best-received news ever announced by the Nigeria Defense Headquarters—that 293 women and girls have been rescued by Nigerian troops from Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa forest.

by Porscha Coleman


For much of the last 72 hours, the news cycle has been dominated by stories about the protests and uprisings in Baltimore. As a result of the surge in news coverage and opinion on social media, there has been a flood of white and non-black people of color entering the conversation. Some of those entering the conversation may be genuinely interested in engaging in dialogue, but have no idea how to address the issues of police brutality, race, or what they are seeing happening in Baltimore.

by Altheria Gaston


Over the last couple of days, #BaltimoreMom and similar hashtags have been trending heavily on Twitter because of a viral forty-eight second video of a Black woman in a yellow top striking a young Black male. The woman in the video is Toya Graham and the male is her sixteen-year-old son. The video shows Ms. Graham striking and verbally chastising her son for his involvement in the Baltimore riots that erupted after the suspicious death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who sustained a grave spinal cord injury while in police custody.

by Dalila Thomas


By now, we’re all familiar with the phrase “think like a man” when it comes to relationships, but what about applying this logic to your career? There are many things that women do, or don’t do, that hinders their ability to move ahead in the workplace. By tweaking our attitudes and getting smart about how we play the game, we can set ourselves up for success and progress in our professional lives.

by Kesiena Boom


The events unfolding in Baltimore at the moment are depressingly familiar: Police officer uses excessive force and kills an unarmed Black person. Black people take peacefully to the streets to express their despair and desire for change. The police escalate the situation. Violence erupts. The media and individuals online express their disgust at the Black protesters. Black people take to social media to report the actual facts as they happen and their personal responses and pain. Rinse and repeat. Another dead body. Another wave of misinformed and racially biased coverage. Another swell of grief. It never ends.

by Leah C.K. Lewis


Remember the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words?” There was a time when the primary purpose of a camera was to record the highlights and the fun and frivolous moments of our lives. Now, the camera is a lawful and vital instrument of social justice and an implement of our (in)justice system.

by Kesiena Boom 


The success of television shows such as Empire—starring Taraji P. Henson as the inimitable, indomitable, and downright inspirational Cookie Lyon—and How To Get Away With Murder—headed by Viola Davis in all her stony, complex wonder—has demonstrated irrefutably that the public is interested in tuning into stories driven by and exploring the many-layered lives of Black women. The ratings for the former did the impossible and grew without fail every week of its first season, an accomplishment that would be notable even if it didn’t star a Black woman and feature an almost entirely Black cast.

For a woman who has made a career out of her love for culture – and consumes so much of it – it would not make sense for me to continue to watch and read and listen to things that I do not relate to. I have been a middle-aged, straight white father and radio psychiatrist, a mid-twenties flaxen-haired masseuse (and full-time kook). I’ve been an unexpected star quarterback from a small, football-mad Texas town. With no qualms. It took no extra labour; it cost me no additional part of my humanity to imagine myself in those shoes, even as they were as far from my experience as it was possible to get: Frasier Crane, Phoebe Buffay, Matt Saracen. The me that I see in all of these characters is not immediately apparent, but it doesn’t take much for me to recognise in them something that already lives in me. You could argue that some of us, more than others, are forced to find that thing.

by Bee Quammie


We weren’t meant to be here.

When I say “we,” I mean Black women. When I say “here,” I mean existing in a place of self-confidence. If America’s greatest fear is an educated Black man, the world’s greatest source of confusion can be found in a self-assured Black woman.

As I watched Angelina Jolie make the news once again for her “heroic” decision to undergo another surgery to eliminate her chance of developing ovarian cancer, I thought, “This is a big deal, but she’s not the only hero.” What I mean by this is that people do what Angelina has done all the time, but no one pays attention because they aren’t a movie star, sex symbol, or poster woman for a thousand humanitarian organizations.

by Aisha Davis


In March 2012, Rekia Boyd was killed by off-duty Chicago police officer Dante Servin. Officer Servin thought that Rekia and her friends were being too loud while they walked to a store. After exchanging words, Officer Servin shot over his shoulder, hitting Rekia in the back of the head.

by Anna Gibson


Ben Affleck has been under fire, for actions he took in response to finding out one of his ancestors owned slaves on the PBS show about genealogy and family history, Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates. Upon learning that one of his ancestors was a slave master, he asked the network to remove this segment from the aired version of the show, and they complied. The email in which he made this request was released on WikiLeaks, and many people are furious that he would do something like this.

by Inda Lauryn


SNAP “challenges” are nothing new. Every once in a while, we get a celebrity and/or politician who decides to rise up to the challenge and either prove or disprove how difficult it is to live on government assistance. Not surprisingly, Gwyneth Paltrow recently got press when she underwent the “challenge” for an entire week and tweeted a picture of her $29 food budget.

by Jamille Fields


April is National Minority Health month, and it is far past time for our elected officials to implement policies to improve Black women’s health. As a Black woman, I want to see something done to eliminate the health inequities that plague us, our families, and our community. As a public health professional, I recognize that expanded health care access can go a long way toward improving individuals’ health. As a lawyer, I know that politicians, currently, have in their hand an opportunity to make such a change. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law as an attempt to expand healthcare access to the nearly 50 million Americans who were uninsured at the time. Five years later, some states are still playing political football with implementing the law.

by Shonette Reed


Beating out more than 530 entries, 7-year-old Natalie McGriff, co-creator of The Adventures of Moxie Girl comic book, walked away with over $16,000 at One Spark, a crowdfunding festival in Jacksonville, FL.

by Akilah S. Richards


All parents need to be visionaries when it comes to our children’s futures. Parenting carries no illusion of certainty, so we all get the same mini “playbook” with instructions to pay attention, prioritize love, set a good example, be compassionate, and hope this shit works out.

by Nyah Levone Molineaux


One of the amazing aspects about being Black is the diversity of our community—including the diversity of religious beliefs and spiritual practices. This was highlighted in C. Imani Williams' essay, “Beyond Christianity: Yes, Non-Religious Blacks Find Spiritual Connection Too,” published on For Harriet earlier this year. The article is a brilliant introduction into the religious diversity of the Black community—in particular, those such as myself who are do not follow or participate in the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

After waiting more than five months, the senate confirmed Loretta Lynch as attorney general on Thursday.  In a 56-43 vote,  Lynch won the position following an unprecedented delay.

Lynch, 55, will become the first Black woman to head the Justice Department when she takes the reigns from Eric Holder who announced his intent to resign last September. She will move into the Obama Administration from her post as U.S. attorney in Brooklyn.

Lynch's nomination became a spectacle not for her credentials or record, but because of Senate leaders' refusal to give her a vote.

h/t NYT

Photo: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

by Kimberly Denise Williams


The fierce afro. The defiant gaze. The black power fist raised. The feminine silhouette. Angela Davis’ image is one of the most enduring from the Black Power Movement. Even looking at footage of her today strikes a note of reverence and conjures a sense of righteousness for the viewer. Her anger is apparent.

by Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D.

It started as I pondered Black Twitter’s response to Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign, a well-intended but clumsy foray into America’s racial morass. The poorly conceptualized initiative spawned a hashtag of its own: #NewStarbucksDrinks. It captured the ridiculousness of discussing serious racial issues—police brutality and marginalization—over a cup of coffee. Hilarity ensued.

@brokeymcpoverty Latte My People Go
— Poor Dollaz (@Chinaija) March 17, 2015

Malcolm Xpresso #NewStarbucksDrinks
— jujoffer (@jujoffer) March 17, 2015

"I feared for my safe-Tea" #NewStarbucksDrinks pic.twitter.com/uszYRIwGzP
— Ess (@ScottyLiterati) March 17, 2015

Police Brew-tali-Tea #NewStarbucksDrinks
— Jen P. Otter (@that_crazy_jen) March 17, 2015

I laughed until my sides ached and I had tears streaming down my face. How could something that came from such a truly compassionate place go down in flames so completely—and with sarcasm was so spot on, so brutal? And when the company pulled the plug on Howard Schultz’s program, it was a perfect testament to the level of successful snark.

It was shade-throwing at its best, which Black Twitter does so well, over and over again. The level of disrespect is funny, original, and unreplicated in other communities. It is also the bitter residue of a people who have mastered the art of dismissing and humiliating others with humor and sarcasm after having been degraded for years ourselves. I’m at a loss when I try to identify any other community that has been able to use a social media diss as well as Black folks do.



But our ability to read others is not exclusive to social media. The age of reality television and the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have created a climate that has elevated the brilliant social interaction known as the “diss.” Through the use of memes, hashtags, and Vines, African-Americans have taken advantage of social media platforms for shared humorous cultural expressions that, while entertaining and unique, reveal the painful psychology of a people who live in the margins of American society.

Black women are central to this phenomenon. In the age of reality TV, as personalities on these shows jockey for attention and popularity, the most effective method for reaching the top of the heap—second to throwing drinks or punches—is successfully and artfully dismissing one’s peers and competitors. In 2011, in a televised shot-heard-around-the-world at Tami Roman, Evelyn Lozada coined the phrase, “You’re non-motherf*cking-factor, b*tch,” which in turn spawned a T-shirt and then a hashtag, and serves as the model for the TV-to-Twitter diss meme.

Uh oh lol RT @D_Mabry10: Everybody using @EvelynLozada u a non motherfucking factor bitch
— Evelyn Lozada (@EvelynLozada) March 10, 2011

The coldest line from "Basketball Wives" came from @EvelynLozada "You are a non MF factor B" Lmbo! I just love the way she said it!!
— Lakoiya Williams (@75SexySag) March 7, 2011

Fast forward to when @BlackGOPChick’s misplaced pride in her culinary skills gave birth to the hashtags #StruggleChicken and the even more popular #StrugglePlate. Once the smoke cleared from the bombing on Twitter—along with the fumes surely created when that poor bird was cooked—the world was left with a durable comedic gem for our online lives, a handy tool to describe things and people that are not quite on the level that they should be: #Struggle. Brilliant!
In a similar vein, we have seen the rise of the more general form of hashtag dismissal: #ByeFelicia. Originally a scene between Ice Cube’s character, Craig, and actress Angela Means Kaaya’s character, Felicia, in the movie Friday, the term has become a way to depersonalize and dismiss the recipient, simultaneously refusing the subject the dignity of their own name while demanding their exit from the conversation. It is the harbinger of all things irrelevant.



The popular hashtags have also given way to the ubiquitous meme. One that we see time and time again is the use of the phrase “so-and-so be like” along with a corresponding image, which has proven its sarcastic durability on social media. Perhaps its most effective use was to trash the Wendy Williams’ produced Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B on the Lifetime Network. The questionable casting of actors who were not exactly the doppelgangers of the people they were intended to portray provided ample fodder for the Twitterati with the hashtag #LifetimeBeLike:

Imma buy you a drank: the T-Pain story #LifetimeBeLike #LifetimeBiopics pic.twitter.com/hXeMwS9vNT
— CJ...Oliver? (@OJohnson_21) November 16, 2014

“@OJohnson_21: Imma buy you a drank: the T-Pain story #LifetimeBeLike #LifetimeBiopics pic.twitter.com/O0cUSrCqqs” 😂😂😂
— Dont Shoot (@KushtieMutsie) November 17, 2014

@RickeySmiley these hilarious #LifetimeBeLike memes #AaliyahMovie: http://t.co/RlfTJoUBIE lol pic.twitter.com/1SOS07GYcQ pic.twitter.com/pvXoacBgAV
— Corey D Chambers (@coreydcham) November 17, 2014

As entertaining the phenomenon of Black Twitter may be, it is an extension of very old traditions in black comedic culture. Over the course of our difficult history in America, humor has served as a self-defense mechanism for African Americans. We are no strangers to the put-down. In her essay, “African American Oral Traditions in Louisiana,” Mona Lisa Saloy traces the practice of “playing the dozens” to the period of slavery when the feeblest of the enslaved were sold in groups of twelve. It was the lowest rung on the ladder of oppression and to be associated with it was a source of shame and later put-down, giving birth to the cultural practice.

In the introduction to Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor, Daryl Dance refers to “the relieving balm of humor.” “Humor for us,” she writes, “has… been a means of surviving as we struggled… We laugh to hide our pain… to shield our shame. We use our humor to speak the unspeakable, to mask the attack… to warn of lines not to be crossed, to strike out at enemies and the hateful acts of friends and family.”

Black women have developed their own unique traditions as well. We call it “sass.” Scholars like Joanne Braxton have identified it as a discursive tool used by black women as a form of verbal self-defense. It was perfected by our foremothers during the period of enslavement as a way to diffuse and redirect tensions with white slave masters and mistresses. Later during the Jim Crow period, black women were left vulnerable because black men—as the primary targets of lynching violence, economic repression, and convict leasing—had trouble protecting themselves, much less their own families. As such, sass became a useful weapon in their arsenal as black women stood in defense of their households, their children, and themselves. This self-defense mechanism, when misunderstood, has unfairly been turned into the racist caricature of the “Sapphire” stereotype—the loud, overbearing, unfeminine and unladylike shrew who dominates her man. In this way black women have been forced not only to fight for their survival, but abused for the mechanisms they’ve employed to achieve.

In addition to being a tool for self-defense, humor has also been a way for African Americans to express themselves creatively, strike back at the system, and cope with the deep pain and shame that came from living lives in the margins of American society. Writing in 1925, Harlem Renaissance novelist Jessie Fauset described the source of black humor, that it rises from the “very woes which beset us.” Bambi Haggins explains this phenomenon in her book, Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America:

[B]lack comedy is tied inextricably to the African American condition….The function of humor and the therapeutic value of the accompanying laughter, inside safe, communal black spaces....As Langston Hughes notes in the autobiographical prose of The Big Sea, the laughter was, more often than not the weapon used to fight the pain.

Now, through the medium of social media, our life-preserving wit—these private comic discourses once hidden within our communities in our own private spaces for fear of the white gaze and the judgement that would follow—are becoming public. Hashtags and memes offer an electronic translation of the eye-roll, the neck roll, the sucking of teeth, the arm akimbo, the raised eyebrow, and all other habits of our signifying culture.

We're laughing out loud, at long last, but sometimes I wonder at whose expense?

As creative and funny as Black Twitter can be, some of the humor is tragicomic. As we proceed toward new levels of viciousness in the pursuit of ratings, likes, and follows, I worry about the conversation spinning out of control in this race toward the bottom. We must be cognizant of the pain this habit of humor is borne of, and be careful about the direction it takes us.
The tongue creates psychic wounds that pushes people to physical retaliation. This escalation takes on a life of its own, becoming viral on social media. There are a proliferation of images of black women on TV fighting each other, i.e. the celebrated season finale of Empire and the fight between Cookie and Anika. These have been outmatched by thousands of videos of fights between black women and girls in communities across America, such as the massive fight at a McDonald’s in Flatbush, New York. Then there is the more recent brawl at a housing project in Tallahassee, Florida, where scores of women, and a few men, engaged in a wild free-for-all, leaving behind a field scattered with torn-out hair weaves and abandoned shoes.

We speak about “dragging” our enemies, literally and figuratively, in an analogy born in the days after Ray Rice battered his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in 2014, dragging her unconscious body from a hotel elevator. Janae’s misfortune as a victim of domestic abuse wasn’t enough to prevent us from harvesting a golden nugget of humor from her personal tragedy.

Black Twitter is a two-sided coin. We should be careful that we don’t chuckle our way to oblivion, overseeing the slow deterioration of our culture and our community, and the erosion of our sisterly bonds.

Photo: Shutterstock

Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D., is a historian and author in South Florida. Her forthcoming book, Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida, will be published by the University Press of Florida in August 2015.

by Malaika Jabali


On Sunday, April 19, renowned professor and author Michael Eric Dyson penned a 9,220-word screed lambasting his former mentor Cornel West on The New Republic. The essay is meant to detail West's decline from the leading Black public intellectual and cultural critic he once was. Instead, the piece tells us more about Dyson and West's long-running feud, with Dyson performing the literary equivalent of taking off his earrings and greasing himself up with Vaseline, readying himself for a fight. Amid unnecessary, personal details that could have remained in the recesses of West’s books and the distant memories of the two men involved, the bulk of Dyson’s argument hinged on West’s diminishing scholarship, prophetic illegitimacy, and, most of all, West’s relationship—or lack thereof—with President Obama.

by Tamika D. Hawkins

I recently took my four-year-old daughter to see Cinderella – it was a live action, modern twist on a classic tale of love conquers all, mixed in with a dash of dreams do come true and brought together with the magical touch of a fairy godmother’s wand. Wouldn’t life be grand if this was all it took? If I could dream it and it would come. If I could wish it and it would appear. In my best Laurence Fishburne-inspired School Daze scream – WAKE UP.

by Anna Gibson


With last week's official announcement that she'll be running in the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton left very few shocked, but still ruffled quite a few feathers across the political landscape. People have long compared her possible entrance to the White House with her husbands’ presidency, cast doubt upon her campaign based on age, and even compared past legislative decisions to possible future actions.

by Courtney McCreary

My French Creole features speak to a long history of miscegenation: green eyes, skin the color of a white peach and a sharp Puritan nose to match my thinly drawn Vermillion lips. Still, my blackness is always in question because of my lightness, especially among my darker sisters. Imagine if you will, having an appearance that, if we're honest, harkens an antebellum era in which black women were viewed as a cross between farm equipment and an outlet for other's deviant sexual desires. A time when light and dark black women were separated and pitted against one another in the hopes of forever severing what should have been an unbreakable bond -- creating envy, disdain, self-loathing and unnecessary competition.

by Anna Gibson


On April 8th, 2014, a rising star in the black community, Karyn Washington, died by suicide. According to an article by Buzzfeed, Washington was the originator of the critically acclaimed website, For Brown Girls, and the #DarkSkinRedLipProject, an initiative that began in response to A$AP Rocky’s comments that “dark-skinned women shouldn’t wear red lipstick.” This movement inspired thousands of women and little girls to find pride in the skin they’re in.

On Monday, a judge found Dante Servin not guilty on charges of shooting and killing Rekia Boyd.

According to The Chicago Sun Times, Judge Dennis Porter granted the defense a motion for a directed verdict allowing Servin to bypass having to put on a defense.

Servin had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct and reckless discharge of a firearm — but Porter, in issuing his verdict, said Servin’s conduct was “beyond reckless” in the March 2012 shooting of Rekia Boyd. Therefore, “it would be improper to allow the trial to continue given the total failure” to prove recklessness, which was key to all three charges. “The evidence does not support the charges on which the defendant is being tried.”

Porter seemed to know his decision would be controversial.The officer’s decision to discharge his firearm, Porter said, “was an intentional act.”

“This is not a place for emotion,” he said before reading his verdict. “This is a place for reasoned decisions.”

Servin, an off-duty Chicago Police detective, fatally shot Boyd, 22, in March 2012. He also injured her friend Antonio Cross after confronting them and two others during a gathering held at a local park.




Boyd died after one of the five bullets from Servin’s unregistered handgun pierced the left side of her head. Servin has maintained that shot only because he felt threatened when he confronted the group about the noise.

Boyd’s mother, Angela Helton, received a $4.5 million settlement with the city.

Rekia's brother, Martinez Sutton, spoke of the verdict outside the court.

by Nneka M. Okona


Hearing about the terrorist attack in Garissa, Kenya at Garissa University on Thursday, April 2nd that left 148 students dead stopped me in my tracks. It’s the kind of news that horrifies, devastates, and leaves one hopeless and wondering why such tragic things have to occur in the first place.

by Nina Daoud


As a 16 year old, first-generation college applicant who also happened to be first-generation American and the eldest of four siblings, the last thing I wanted to do was apply to colleges in faraway places in the middle of nowhere. In my eyes, institutions like Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Swarthmore reeked of privilege and unfamiliarity—and I wanted no part of it. I told my counselor I wanted to apply early decision to SUNY Buffalo, and that I had made my decision.

by Jailyn Gladney


The question of whether or not a nation can ever overcome the injustices it has committed is a tricky one. Within the American context, this question cannot be separated from a bloody history of genocide, enslavement, cultural theft, and domestic terrorism that has persisted into a supposedly “post-racial” era despite heavy suppression of its memory. Though many of the legal justifications that formerly upheld white supremacy have been eradicated, the cultural myths and customs that created those legalities are alive and well. In a country that was founded upon freedom for “all men” but conveniently defined my people as something different—something subhuman—it it is only rational to be critical of the suggestion that our scars, our deaths, and our humiliations can ever be healed or atoned for by a nation that would prefer that we forget our past.

by Kenya Carlton


With websites, magazines, and entire lines of products dedicated to African-American women with natural hair, is it a wonder that so many people have joined the movement? In a matter of five years, perm sales declined a whopping $54 million dollars in an otherwise booming industry. In 2009, Chris Rock shed light on how the hair care industry makes billions of dollars off of African-American women with his documentary, Good Hair. Rock takes credit for the new development of “curlies," but what have companies who relied on profits from relaxers done to make up for their loss? Major hair care lines have turned their attention away from texturizers and toward products exclusively marketed for natural hair. Whereas hair care and beauty companies have found a way to adjust, hair stylists have taken a financial hit.




“Stylists aren’t trained in beauty school to work with natural hair. There may be a small section of their studies focused on African-American hair, but the instructors go through it really fast,” said hairstylist Monica Taylor. “People choosing natural hair over relaxed hair didn’t affect me much, but if you can’t do natural hair, you took a hit.”

Hair stylists are offered continuing education, but most don’t take the classes necessary to keep up with current trends, which have forced some to lean toward deceitful practices. Strawberri Curls ran an article about stylists sneaking relaxer into clients' deep conditioning treatments. Many of the commenters voiced their outrage over this practice, while others shared their own horror stories of being tricked into an unwanted chemical treatment.

Do we, as naturals, have more to worry about than keeping our curls moisturized? Why would anyone dare do such a thing to a client who has taken the time to grow out her texturized tresses?

“In my opinion, many stylists don’t take the time to do natural hair because time is money and natural hair requires more time and more work. It takes way more torque & heat to blow dry and straighten natural hair than it does to straighten relaxed hair,” said Erica Holder, Director of Operations for Erskine Reeves Barber Academy.

With so much working against stylists with the natural revolution, is it even worth partaking in the lengthy and time-consuming endeavor? According to Holder, there’s plenty of options. “The pros of natural hair are that you have many more styling options: wash-n-go, twist-outs, bantu knots, braids, afros, straight, etc. The cons are that you have to make sure you prepare your hair at night, whether this means braiding it, twisting it, wrapping it, or simply wearing a scarf or a bonnet.”

What should a curly girl do when a whole industry doesn’t support their personal journey? Many websites dedicated to maintaining natural hair suggest “do it yourself” remedies as an alternative to the salon visit. However, when time and inexperience collide, the natural girl is left with few choices at her disposal.

Education of every new endeavor is key. “Naturals still need to come into the salon,” said Monica Taylor, a stylist for over 26 years. “For trims, maintenance, and to see overall how the hair is doing.”




She also gave tips on choosing the best hair stylist for your natural hair: “Any licensed professional should be able to answer all your questions. Ask for pictures of their previous looks, and if they don’t have any natural pictures, reconsider using them.”

Hair for black women is a serious and sensitive topic. With so many options available, the number one rule seems to be: Follow their instincts, and do whatever makes you feel confident and comfortable.

Photo: Shutterstock