My mother, God bless her (she’s still around, but still), grew up in a certain village in rural Nigeria. And to survive this upbringing, she had to adopt some beliefs, behaviors and coping mechanisms that would seem paranoid to untrained and Americanized eyes like mine.

Since Cheeto Grease the Tyrant fumblingly assumed office thanks to the Assorted Colonizer Coalition of America at the conclusion of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, something interesting has happened:

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Root’s Sunday series highlighting the best in black fiction writers: It’s Lit! Each week we’ll feature a new story across all genres—from Afrofuturism to those stories that will bring a tear to your eye. Want to submit your short story? We’re looking for well-crafted works of fiction of…

Through my multiple viewings of Black Panther (four so far), I become aware of certain traits of the characters, their ideals and how the actors’ portrayals of them shed light on the struggles that black people and the world at large experience with tradition vs. technology, and other dichotomies.

In approximately three weeks, on Feb. 16, the biggest and blackest movie extravaganza that we have seen since the turn of ’00 will finally be hitting theaters.

2018 is off to a pretty interesting start. At the conclusion of the painful year that was 2017, various women of assorted celebrity backgrounds assembled to simultaneously weaponize their privilege and latch onto the momentum and resurgence of Tarana Burke’s “Me Too” movement. This gave birth to a new movement on Jan.…

I don’t have to tell you how supremely tough 2017 was to deal with. Like, I’m sure we all could go on and on about how terrible this year truly was to each and every last one of us. Still, the year had some high points, which we pointed out earlier this week, but in the spirit of balance and equilibrium (it took me…

2017 has been, how do I put this succinctly, a fucking shit year.

This past weekend, I was winding down after a fairly long Thanksgiving weekend by engaging in one of my guilty pleasures: The Real Housewives of Atlanta. After a long day, I was ready for some petty, funny mess.

Ah, Thanksgiving. Everyone’s favorite official-yet-unofficial holiday. Retailers don’t really know what to do with it, since they tend to jump from a Halloween marketing blitzkrieg straight into Christmas marketing overexposure, but that doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that Thanksgiving is that…

The time has finally come. After waiting 20-odd years (read: my entire life), we are finally on the eve of Black Panther’s arrival. And by “eve,” I mean that finally, Black Panther will be the very next Marvel film to grace our eyeballs.

Over the past two weeks on the heels of the Harvey Weinstein travesty, I’ve noticed a trend. And I have a question and am in need of an answer.

For once ... I’d like to be wrong. For once, I’d like white feminists to not be so damn predictable.

In 2017 the TV landscape, despite the persistent whiteness of some networks like CBS, is looking a bit more ... colorful. We certainly have heavy hitters like Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay to thank for this, as their creations are sorely needed, especially as we dwell under the “leadership” (gag me) of the despotic…

Somewhere in the good ol’ book, there’s a saying that goes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Now, I’m about six years removed from my last Sunday school class, but I’m pretty sure this concept also applies to a fairly old concept:

I’ll be honest. I thought it was going to be a boring-ass week—until Taylor Swift “surprise”-dropped her new single from her next album, “Reputation,” this past Friday. And, you know, everyone acted as expected, mostly.

It’s been quite a busy couple of months for white women. After 53 percent of them handed Donald Trump the election at the conclusion of 2016, they have turned the nonsense up to 11.

As a black femme living under the United States’ first Orange administration, every piece of “breaking news” makes me feel like I’m living in Groundhog Day. You know, that movie with Bill Murray?