September 10, 2018

Best Of, Real Talk

Serena May Have Lost, But She’s Not Defeated!

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There is something about this image that had me staring at it all day yesterday and this morning too. This is Serena Williams after her blow-up, not meltdown, with umpire Carlos Ramos who accused her of cheating during yesterday’s match at the 2018 US Open final. This is Serena Williams, 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, sitting in the wake of sexism and racism’s microaggressive fuckery. This image is heartbreaking. It’s sobering. It’s a reflection. Read more...

June 5, 2015

Lifestyle, Real Talk

#CountMeOUT: Wangechi Mutu & Toshi Reagon

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“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” -Audre Lorde

theHotness celebrates and partners with Black queer women this month in our #CountMeOUT campaign that links African and African-American women– both queer and straight in conversations and hopefully in a movement that expands the ways in which we think about community, activism and sisterhood.

In launching #CountMeOUT, I will present a series of Read more...

May 25, 2015

Real Talk

Dear Chris Brown: An Open Letter

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Dear Chris Brown, Mentally Ill Black Women Need Counseling, Not A Good Lay:

When you returned home on Wednesday, May 6th I know you surely had a WTF moment. Discovering that your home was broken into, seeing your cars vandalized and finding a naked woman, whom you didn’t know, in your bed had to be shocking, infuriating and maybe even a little scary. You were violated by a young woman who by all accounts, even Read more...

March 21, 2014

Grooves

Hot Grrrls Cool Music w/ RES at Ginny’s

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Singer Res is a shapeshifter. Instead of getting stuck, silenced or worse, stereotyped, she changes-up her flow a little bit here, and revises her steez a little there, and with every transformation she seems to be moving closer to the fly woman artist of her dreams.

I remember when How I Do dropped. It was Black cool on another level. “Golden Boys” was the joint— Res with all that sass pulling down the curtain Read more...

January 17, 2014

Real Talk

The 15 Most Fascinating Hot Grrrls of 2013

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Fresh on the heels of watching Lupita Nyong’o get robbed at the Golden Globes for her star-making, provocative and mesmerizing performance in 12 Years A Slave and frankly, still salty over Kerry Washington’s Emmy loss last fall, I was reminded of theHotnessMost Fascinating List from 2010 and knew it was high-time to bring that justificative joint back. And yea, the Oscars even snubbed Oprah yesterday and left her, for a second time (first Read more...

November 11, 2013

Real Talk, TV/Film

I’m On The Katie Show! (Part I)

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Please check me out every day this week on the Katie Show (ABC @3pm). I was selected to be one of three women discussing the challenges of finding my ideal job in this shaky, shut-downed economy and Katie Couric has set out to help me get this cool gig in a new segment called “Katie’s Classifieds.” Unbeknownst to me, I was referred for this series and the producers selected me the night before they started Read more...

October 4, 2013

Real Talk

Miriam Carey, Gladiators & The Mentally Ill

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Real life is stranger than fiction. Olivia Pope seems to have the answers to it all. Just when you think she is down and out she rises again to face another day without so much as a smudge on her white trench coat. But in Washington, D.C. yesterday Miriam Carey was shot several times by police and she will never see another day. Reports that she suffered from post-partum depression, which in many circles, especially Read more...

July 24, 2013

Hot Grrrls

Hot Grrrls & Their Kool Kickstarters

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With technology comes access and with access we can damn near make anything happen and that is the premise behind Kickstarter. Via Kickstarter, I’ve seen many of my friends put out the CD’s they’ve always dreamed of releasing but never could do before without a label deal or having saved stacks of cash. I’ve even know a couple of people make amazing documentaries via Kickstarter. It’s power to the people without delay… well 45 days, Read more...

February 27, 2013

Real Talk

Black Girls Deserve So Much More

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“I speak here as a woman of Color who is not bent upon destruction, but upon survival. No woman is responsible for altering the psyche of her oppressor, even when that psyche is embodied in another woman.” –Audre Lorde

“The way I feel about life? It’s a struggle. You have to stop getting mad and get smart.” – Mamie Lee Melton Nichols

Sunday night as the Oscar’s came to a close someone at The Onion Read more...

February 6, 2013

Real Talk

Is Your Half-Time Show As Good As Beyonce’s?

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On Sunday I was transfixed like pretty much everyone else on the planet by Beyoncé’s half-time show. I was already amped because my team had run a clinic on the 49ers in the first half and was screwing up spreads across the land. Now I was ready for King Bey to rock that mutha.

Hot off the heels of a lip synch controversy so huge it damn near made Milli Vanilli’s debacle seem like a Read more...