Farewell to Ms. Lena

“You have to be taught to be second class; you’re not born that way”, is just one of the many Lena Horne aphorisms that traversed through social networking sites yesterday […]

On the 97th Year Since Harriet Tubman Died

Born a slave in Maryland during 1822, the adolescent Tubman (then Araminta Ross) suffered a blow to her head from a cruel overseer, as a result suffering seizures, headaches and hallucinations for the rest of her life. Nonetheless, in her late 20s she escaped to freedom in Philadelphia and made more than a dozen trips back to Maryland, leading both her own family and dozens of other slaves to freedom.

Mo’Nique, Bigelow and Oscar

This season’s Academy Awards race, ending with last night’s historic ceremony, was without a doubt the ripest, richest Oscar period in recent memory for popular culture critics to sink their teeth into.

Three of the ten Best Picture nominees–The Blind Side, District 9, and Avatar–battled accusations of racist subtexts within the scope of their film narratives. Kathryn Bigelow became symbolic of the fact that women directors have rarely been nominated for Oscars and had never won.