Category: Arts

  • Miss France ‘whitened’ for Paris Match The Times of London 2016-12-23 Charles Bremner, Europe Editor A row over racism has tainted this year’s Miss France contest after the winner was pictured in a magazine with apparently lightened features and her hair straightened. Alicia Aylies, an 18-year-old student who earlier won the Miss French Guiana contest, was…

  • Misty Copeland En Pointe The Undefeated 2016-12-14 Kelley L. Carter, Senior Culture Writer Photographs by Brent Lewis Videos by Lois Nam, Senior Digital Producer America’s most famous prima ballerina heads to Cuba to represent female athleticism. (Yes, athleticism.) HAVANA, Cuba Misty Copeland is at the barre. She’s demonstrating a battement tendu to a group of…

  • The Photograph That Helped Misty Copeland Realize Her Responsibility as a Black Woman in Ballet Vanity Fair 2016-10-11 Misty Copeland Ahead of her new book, the first African-American female principal dancer of the American Ballet Theatre reveals the power of seeing a portrait of Raven Wilkinson, who broke color barriers in ballet more than 50…

  • China Machado, Breakthrough Model Until the End, Dies at 86 The New York Times On The Runway 2016-12-19 Vanessa Friedman China Machado, the first non-Caucasian to appear in the pages of an American glossy fashion magazine and a model who broke not only the race barrier but also the age barrier, died on Sunday in…

  • ‘Barry’ director on race, identity and why the young Obama matters Mashtable 2016-12-20 Proma Khosla Vikram Gandhi didn’t direct the Netflix biopic Barry because he cared about Barack Obama. He made it because he cared about a kid named Barry. Gandhi set out to discover who Barack was before he was Barack, back in 1981.…

  • A Comic’s Secret Southern Story Below The Line Garden & Gun 2016-12-13 CJ Lotz A panel from “Krazy Kat.” Courtesy Krazy Before “The Far Side,” “Calvin and Hobbes,” or even Mickey Mouse, one cartoon stole the show. From 1913 to 1944, a panel called “Krazy Kat” ran in newspapers across the country and counted “Peanuts” creator…

  • When Labels Don’t Matter: George Herriman and Krazy Kat The Beat 2016-12-14 Heidi MacDonald, Editor-In-Chief We’ve been writing a bit about Michael Tisserand’s comprehensive new biography of George Herriman, Krazy: A Life in Black and White, but last night I got to hear him talk about it at one of the stops on his mini…

  • What was the source of Krazy Kat’s comic genius? The Washington Post 2016-12-06 Glen David Gold Michael Tisserand, Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White (New York: HarperCollins, 2016) Genius is simplicity. A dog, who is a policeman, loves a cat, who loves a mouse. The mouse throws bricks at the cat, and…

  • Event Review: Salena Godden’s #LIVEwire Album Launch Welcome to the MA in Black British Writing The world-first Masters programme in Black British literature at Goldsmiths, University of London 2016-12-09 Heather Marks Soho holds many secrets, and last night revealed one of them to be Salena Godden’s spoken word album launch at Carnesky’s Finishing School. Descending the…

  • From Her Dad To Her ‘Jamish’ Roots, A Poet Pieces Her Story Together All Things Considered National Public Radio 2014-12-28 Arun Rath, Host Growing up in 1970s England, Salena Godden stood out. Her mother was Jamaican and her father was an Irish jazz musician who mysteriously disappeared from her life when she was very young.…