Jaden and Willow Smith gave an interview to The New York Times’ T Magazine earlier this week that is incredibly smart—a fusion of Buddhist philosophy, physics and earnest idealism. But people are coming for Willow and Jaden—the children of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith—instead. Gawker called them “nuts.” The Grio called them “confusing,” a […]
Author: Hope Wabuke
Hope Wabuke is a mom and writer who lives in the United States but works globally. She runs a communications company called The WriteSmiths and is also a founding Board Member and Director of Media & Communications for the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction. She has received fellowships from the Voices of Our Nation Foundation,The New York Times Foundation, Cave Canem, and her writing has been featured in Newsweek's The Daily Beast, Salon, Gawker, For Harriet, The Feminist Wire, Dirty Laundry Lit, Kimbilio online, Kalyani Magazine, and various other theatres and magazines. A former writing professor at New York University and City University of New York, she is currently at work on a poetry collection about her family’s escape from Idi Amin’s Ugandan genocide and several other projects. She blogs at hopeafteryoga.com, and you can follow her on Twitter@HopeWabuke.
Am I My Sister’s Keeper?
This past February, when President Obama announced his first initiative to address the historical and current effects of racism in the United States, many applauded the effort as a long overdue step in the right direction. However, the program, called My Brother’s Keeper, focuses only on boys and young men of color, ignoring one half […]
Why Is It Still Legal to Profile Working Moms?
In 1994, Kiki Peppard, a single mother of two, moved to eastern Pennsylvania desperate for employment to support her family. And her strategy worked: the savvy job hunter managed to score 19 interviews. But each time a prospective employer learned that Ms. Peppard had children, the interview abruptly ended and she was not offered the […]
20 Funny Black Women of Twitter
When Saturday Night Live announced its newest cast members earlier this season, there was some not-so-surprising news: For the sixth year in a row, the legendary sketch comedy show would not feature any black female cast members. And this week it got a whole lot worse. Reports TV Guide: Instead of blaming showrunner Lorne Michaels […]
Tiana Parker And Our Black Hair
Someone once said that men invented makeup and fashion so that women would spend all their time thinking about what was on top of their heads and not what was inside them. While I think that trivializes the hard work and artistic creativity involved in these two design fields, I get the point. When Tiana […]
The Last Week of August Was the First Black Breastfeeding Week
Flying under the radar during the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington was America’s first Black Breastfeeding Week, cofounded by Anayah Sangodele-Ayoka, Kimberly Seals Allers and Kiddada Green. These women, as Gandhi told us long ago, “are being the change they want to see in this world.” Instead of waiting for […]
99 Ways to Respect Black Women
This year marked 100 years since the death of Harriet Tubman, the former American slave who proved great heart and courage in rescuing other slaves. This fact was commemorated not with a holiday or a monument but by our very own brother Russell Simmons thinking it would be wonderful to make a “Harriet Tubman sex […]