 Los Angeles mural "Energy Never Dies" by @paintedprophet Black Mamba’s death one year ago today prepared the world for the pandemic
I was sitting in a crowded coffee shop in Providence, R.I., when my baby brother texted me the news. Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others, had died in a helicopter crash on a foggy Sunday morning. My reaction was immediate, visceral...
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 After Trump’s tirades, taunts and tyranny, it feels good to laugh again.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are sulking in the sunshine state after a recent demotion, you’ve probably noticed that the Vermont senator has been keeping really good company as of late. We’re talking A-listers and Forest Gump-like historical figures. Among my favorite situations and stars...  Photo courtesy a purple-clad Cathy Means I had no idea when I traveled to Washington, D.C. with Agape's choir to sing at various inaugural balls to celebrate our very first black president that twelve years later, we'd be celebrating our very first black vice-president — and that I would have a role in honoring her in a very special way.
 PeacockTV, Belafonte Enterprises I imagine the time Harry Belafonte sat in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show was as anticipated as the latest episode of the webcast series Verzuz showcasing Patti Labelle and Gladys Knight. The two Black culture events converged for me last weekend when I watched the documentary about the historic Woke Week, The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show, and the so-called battle of the R&B divas on the same day.  My Brearley yearbook page featured a poem by Nikki Giovanni and one of my own. As soon as that preposterous photo of President Trump brandishing the bible hit the stratosphere, I intuitively sensed who was behind his pilgrimage from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church. “This reeks of the First Daughter,” I shared with a friend. I sat up straight in my chair, threw my shoulders back, thrust out my chin and cheekbones (mine are natural, without benefit of a plastic surgeon’s scalpel) and delivered my best Ivanka. “Daddy, this is an important moment,” I tittered, lips pursed. “It will be like Moses and the Ten Commandments.” My friend laughed. “Is she like the girls you attended school with?” “Oh no! She went to Chapin. Brearley girls are not like that.” Three decades later, I’m embarrassed to admit it remains etched in my consciousness that Chapin girls are blonde and snooty whereas Brearley girls are brighter, better, more magnanimous. The truth is much more complicated.  A lot has happened since Tom, Amandla and I took this picture at the Democratic National Convention in Denver twelve years ago! I thought about that heady, soul-stirring experience while watching DNC 2020's opening night coverage. Michelle Obama's widely lauded speech framed life in America today in a bold, truth-searing fashion. She made it quite clear: We've got to vote as if our very life depends on it. Because it does. In 2008, there was so much jubilance and promise—of hope, of change. Watch this television news story to see how excited I was (I appear one-minute in.)
 ©ABC Karen Black in "Trilogy of Terror" terrified me as a child. But not as much as Racist White Karen. I was just as outraged as the rest of the world when I first saw the video of Amy Cooper wielding her white privilege in Central Park, her shrieks penetrating like a sword in an ultimately futile attempt to cut down Christian Cooper (no relation). One month later, the video is now at 45 million views. In fact, I was so very outraged I consciously chose to ignore the slight inflicted by Christian’s sister, Melody, in her tweet that circled the globe.  Artwork by @thatlaundry In the middle of the night a collective grief weighs down on me like a haint. Yet another black person’s senseless death. George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Speak their names into the prayer and justice fields.
 Remembering moments like this one from May of last year. Amandla and I stopped outside of her fabulous loft apartment in Paris' 11th arrondissement to drink in the evening. I arrived from L.A. for a week, having been charged with ferrying Kumo the cat across the Atlantic. One year later I've just finished watching the result of Amandla's six-month rendezvous with Paris—the eight-part Netflix series, The Eddy. It’s a soul-stirring, cinematic marvel, and a poignant deep-dive into the lives of some riveting characters, including troubled Julie, played by Amandla. She is "scintillating" in the role, possesses an "arresting presence," and delivers a "scene-stealing performance," reviewers say. Plus there's this appreciation by Amy Taupin in Artforum and this gorgeous Emmy magazine cover. I may just have to stream it again.
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