This last semester, I had the pleasure of taking an African American Studies course with Professor Danielle L. McGuire.  To my pleasant surprise, it turned out to be the best class I've taken in my entire collegiate career so far.   One of the most interesting books assigned to us to read was…

A culture of paranoia encapsulates American black men within an invisible cloak of suspicion from birth. It is a cloak that passes down to every new generation of black men, who at some point in their lives come across a situation that makes them realize: I am not equal. While local, state and national…

When it comes to natural hair, a relatively hot topic is whether natural tresses are truly accepted in corporate America. After speaking with friends and reading various opinions on this issue, and I can honestly say that the answer is: It depends. 

Let me first provide a personal anecdote about…

As you know, Cafe Belle is an online magazine dedicated to encouraging, inspiring, educating, and entertaining all women of color. We write for the woman of color who is multifaceted in her interests and is looking for a one-stop blogging experience that will satiate various topic interests, week to…

Martin Luther King is known as the patriarch of the Civil Rights Movement. His visage has been immortalized at the United States National Mall, and his birthday is a national hoilday where everybody can celebrate the freedom he so valiantly fought for until his passing. Dr. King lived and died so that…

I am quite perturbed by Ancestry.com's commercial featuring an African-American actor (see above video). The actor states the following: 

I was a little afraid, I mean, as an…

Americans are experiencing an interesting "paradigm shift" when it comes to mentally digesting black beauty on a daily basis. For a long time, people simply have not known how to mentally process it. It used to be relegated to the outskirts of mainstream beauty, where you would have to search pretty hard…

I'm incredibly disappointed with Google results when it comes to a particular search term: "black girls". I googled that term in order to find a particular organization geared towards young black women, only to find that the first several hits dealt with porn websites and disgusting, offensive language re:…

When it comes to a black woman's hair, an unspoken social discourse provides instruction as to how to behave around it. Justin Bieber didn't really think about that discourse (or was most likely aware of it) when this happened at this year's Grammy Awards:

There is…

I just fell in love with the article, "Do Blacks Look for Race in Everything", written by Bene Viera, …

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama

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Written By: Kris

When I ask "what's your oreo status?," I'm not asking if you have a package of Oreo cookies in your kitchen cupboard. Nope - I'm going deeper on this one. When I ask this question, I'm asking: To what degree are you "black" on the outside and "white" on the…

I just recently tripped on some video recaps of the Tyra Banks Show on the topic of "good hair" (see example above), and I only needed to watch a few minutes of the show before jumping into writing this blog post. I want to start off by stating that I am quite happy that Tyra Banks has decided to discuss some closeted issues in…