Ebony Utley's Posts

Down-Low Men and Self-Protecting Women

Terrance Dean’s debut novel Mogul (Atria Books) tells the story of entertainment music producer Aaron “Big A.T.” Tremble’s struggle to come to terms with his sexuality. After compromising photos of Big A.T. and another man are sent to his girlfriend, Big A.T. must decide whether to publicly reveal his sexuality and risk compromising his success. [...]

The Good Wives

The blogosphere, beauty salons and comedy clubs are buzzing with various opinions about Maria Shriver, who hired a top divorce attorney after her husband of 25 years, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, admitted publicly that he fathered a child with another woman. People ask, What did Shriver suspect? When did she suspect it? How could [...]

Some Bittersweet Truths About Ashley Judd

Ashley Judd told her truth. Last week, two paragraphs from her new memoir All That is Bitter and Sweet caused a firestorm on the Internet. The most incendiary read, As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music–with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’–is the [...]

Empowered and Sexy

Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture by Tulane University professor Shayne Lee (Hamilton  Books, 2010) revolutionizes the politics of black female respectability. Instead of writing about how hypersexualized representations hurt black women, Lee celebrates black female pop culture icons who purposefully hype uninhibited sexual agency. He defends Karinne Steffans, Tyra Banks, Alexyss Tylor [...]

Is Women’s Empowerment Really the Problem?

Women’s empowerment has become a problem. Again. According to Katrin Bennhold of The New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune, women’s empowerment may be killing romance. Bennhold writes: Sexual attraction in the 21st century, it seems, still feeds on 20th-century stereotypes. Now, as more women match or overtake men in education [...]

For the Love of Freedom and Fashion

The founder and president of Freedom and Fashion describes herself as a slave to end slavery. Constantly networking, fundraising, and sometimes sewing by hand in the dimly lit rooms of friends and family until 4am, Bonnie Kim and her board of directors work in the background to support fair trade organizations and NGOs that raise [...]

Dating White or Dating Right?

I am a black woman who has only seriously dated black men. I am still single, but I am not insecure, co-dependent, stupid or a ho. I’m sure many women find themselves in similar situations, but LaShaun Williams is not talking to you in her recent post, “8 Reasons to Date a White Man.” Here [...]

Black Women M.I.A.

Missing black women rarely blow up the blogosphere. Unless you’re Lauryn Hill. Or bell hooks. In the wake of the monumental success of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Ms. Hill (as she prefers to be called) had it all—a multi-platinum innovative album that she had produced, written and arranged herself, five Grammy awards, a Time [...]

All About Love

bell hooks’ legacy is love. No black woman scholar has theorized love as seriously as hooks has. All About Love, Communion, Salvation and Wounds of Passion personally inspired me to explore the heartaches as well as the healing powers of love. In All About Love, hooks argues that everyone wants love, yet most of us are [...]

Basketball Wives

Much to the surprise and then the chagrin of many of my friends, I watched an entire season of the reality TV show Basketball Wives, plus the reunion episode. I kept telling everyone that there had to be more to the show than grown women cat-fighting and emptying glasses of water on each other. Nine [...]

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