CULTURE

Watch These Black Shows and Movies Before They Get Axed

It's Black History Month — no better time to support these Black-led movies and shows.

Black Movies for Black History Month 2024

Chris Harris/Searchlight Pictures

In 2020, pretty much every industry went through a crisis. Yes, partly because of the pandemic. But, after the murder of George Floyd and the international Black Lives Matter playlists, everyone looked around and realized: their Black representation was abysmal.

From corporate offices to movies, people were forced to reckon with the institutionalized racism at the center of their industries. Promises were made. Copies of bell hooks's All About Love were sold out. DEI executives were added to C-Suites. And everyone swore to look inward and make changes outward. But now, all those promises have been forgotten.

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CULTURE

Kanye West Rebranding Black History Month is Not as Revolutionary as he Thinks

Ye said he's "tired of talking about slavery," but what about when he said it was a choice?

Kanye West

By Liam Goodner // Shutterstock

Ye — the artist formerly known as Kanye West — is always spouting off about something. Recently, he decried NFTs, had some very Divorced Dad moments, and hurled proverbial shots at Pete Davidson.

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ToLibertyProject

Black History Month Watchlist 2022

Best movies new and streaming for Black History Month in February 2022

via HBO

February is here, and with it comes hoards of content for us to celebrate Black History Month — and while some of it is genuinely inspiring, much of it is tired and trite.

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Music Lists

Best Moments of Black History Month 2021

From Shmurda to Janet Jackson to Zendaya making that mac and cheese.

Zendaya and John David Washington in Malcolm and Marie

via Netflix

We made it through another Black History Month, and after the rollercoaster of 2020, this year more than ever we approached the month with celebration and caution.

After the protests of summer 2020 and the fatigue of the election, it felt good just to celebrate Blackness instead of mourn it.

However, there was the risk it would be a month full of Nancy Pelosi in a kente-cloth and other pandering bullsh*t. But we're in the clear, and despite the persisting pandemic, enough Black culture moments broke through the mess to carry us through.
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Top Stories

Friday Film Club: Andra Day Anchors "The United States vs Billie Holiday"

The "Strange Fruit" singer is an example of the toll celebrity takes on vulnerable women, especially Black women.

The last in the triptych of blockbuster Black movies premiering this Black history month — the former being Malcom & Marie and Judas and the Black Messiah — is the biographical feature film The United States vs Billie Holiday.

The Billie Holiday biopic has been long in the works. Finally, the story of Billie Holiday and her persecution by the US government is streaming on Hulu.

Big names have all teamed up to carry the weight of the story, from director Lee Daniels of The Butler to a screenplay based on the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari adapted by award winning-playwright Suzan Lori-Parks. The film also stars Trevante Rhodes of Moonlight, Da'Vine Joy Randolph of High Fidelity, and Andra Day, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter known for "Rise Up" as Holiday herself.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday - Trailer (Official) • A Hulu Originalwww.youtube.com

The film sees Holiday at the height of her career, battling the censorship from the government, racism in her life and around her, and a drug addiction. The United States vs Billie Holiday makes clear that Holiday's smear campaigns, surveillance, and brief imprisonment were an effort to stop her from singing "Strange Fruit" — a carefully calculated operation by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics who feared Holiday's song would incite protest and unrest.

The song "Strange Fruit," known as one of the first and greatest commercial protest songs, is a haunting, unflinching condemnation of lynching and is now Holiday's legacy; but most people don't know its significance to Holiday nor the country.

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Top Stories

Lupita Nyong'o's "Sulwe" at Netflix Is an Important Step for Representation of Black Girls

Netflix just picked up "Sulwe" by Lupita Nyong'o, a book about a girl "the color of midnight"

Sulwe, the children's book by Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o is coming to Netflix as an animated musical.

The book is about a girl born "the color of midnight" and her journey to self-acceptance. Based in part on Nyong'o's own experience as a dark-skinned woman, the semi-autobiographical book boasts/carries themes of self-love and anti-colorism.

Nyong'o, who struggled with self-image as a child because of her skin tone, called the book "a mirror for dark-skinned children to see themselves, a window for those who may not be familiar with colorism."

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