Stereohyped launched exactly one year ago, and what I remember most about that day is that I was completely terrified. I was terrified that I would suck, that I would mess up, and that you wouldn't like me. Well, over the course of the year, I have sometimes sucked, I have messed up on occasion, and some of you have not liked me at all. Nevertheless, the good has far outweighed the bad, and the site has grown and evolved so much — with no small thanks to the readers, especially the ones who actively comment — since this cheesy, dated (Rihanna and Omarion? As if!) introduction was posted. Among other things, we've won awards and expanded our staff, and we hope for even more good things to come in our second year.

In honor of the Stereohyped's birthday, I went through the archives and picked out some notable moments in the site's short existence. If you've been reading for as long as I've been writing, you'll probably remember many of these, too.

CONTINUED »

Ladies, it's happened to most of us at one time or another. You're at a party, or a club, or a get together, and a guy catches your interest. Maybe you've just had a good conversation, and maybe you've just admired him from across the room. This dialogue with your girls ensues:

You: "Blank looks so good. Does he have a girlfriend?"

Friend: "No, but I heard he only dates white girls."

You, disappointed: "Ugh, really?

Other friend: "I could have told you that by looking at him."

CONTINUED »

About four years ago, Keli Goff had an inkling of what many political experts are just not starting to realize — that when it comes to politics, young black Americans are no longer in lockstep with their parents, the old-guard black leaders, or the Democratic party. Driven by this concept, Goff, a political analyst who got her start in the field as an intern on Hillary Clinton's first senatorial campaign, talked to young black voters, conducted surveys, and put her ideas on the page.

She came up with a book, Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence, about how the Democratic establishment has lost the unshakable loyalty of many young black voters who don't have any first-hand experience of the Civil Rights era, which was when the bond between blacks and the Democratic party was forged. Many feel only weak ties to a Democratic party that doesn't necessarily relate to them, and, as a result, are registering as independents at unexpected rates. The data in the book, which Goff conceived of years ago and finished researching and writing last year, is at least one answer to the question of how a solid, traditional Democratic candidate like Hillary Clinton is less popular with young voters than the more youthful upstart preaching an end to bitter partisanship.

I spoke to recently Goff about her book, in which your own Lauren Williams makes an appearance, spouting off about how Al Sharpton isn't my leader and gushing unbecomingly about B.O. After the jump, get the low down on her book, recent campaign issues, Barack Obama, working for Clinton, and a horrifying on-air run in with Pat "Say Thank You" Buchanan.

CONTINUED »

Hot on the heels of the essays Lauren and I published Friday about our unique black experiences, today The New York Times runs "Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race". The article's interview subjects had several interesting, heartrending stories of their own:

Jenifer Bratter once wore a T-shirt in college that read “100 percent black woman.” Her African-American friends would not have it.

“I remember getting a lot of flak because of the fact I wasn’t 100 percent black,” said Ms. Bratter, 34, recalling her years at Penn State.

“I was very hurt by that,” said Ms. Bratter, whose mother is black and whose father is white.

Regardless of the fact that some people's attitudes remain stagnant, statistics show that many Americans continue to pursue interracial relationships. In 2000, the first year the Census allowed respondents to identify themselves as two or more races, six percent of the country's marriages were interracial and three percent of the population considered themselves mixed.

Good news, but it will be even better news when the United States is equalized enough to remove entirely from the Census the question of ethnicity. As James McBride, the biracial author of The Color of Water, notes, "When you’re mixed, you see how absurd this business of race is."

What is the black experience? Newspaper reporters write lengthy stories, for which they interview people leaving church and waiting to get their hair done at the salon, about it. Politicians drop it in their speeches. In moments of laziness, I surely refer to it on this blog. What experience is universal among all black people? Besides the obvious — existing in our various shades of brown skin — I would argue that black Americans share the experience of living in a society, a world even, that's dominated by people who don't look like us and, even if some of us have never felt it in person or experienced it first-hand, being of a race that has been judged, stereotyped, stepped on, and discriminated against, in varying degrees, since the United States as we know it came into existence. Many of us, but not all of us, share church-going habits and religions. Many of us, but not all of us, share food preferences and family traditions. But, culturally, how much do we all have in common? A lot of us have been discriminated against directly, but many of us haven't. No one has ever spray-painted "Die Nigger" on my garage door, but knowing that it has happened somewhere out there in suburban America to people who look like me for the sole reason that they are black still makes me sad, still unsettles me, still fills me with a dull sort of anger. If we have nothing in common in our present lives, one thing black people share is history.

CONTINUED »

After nearly a year (Stereohyped turns 1 on April 23rd!) of non-stop blogging, Mama needs a vacay. Which is why I'm jetting off to Rome for five days with my dear sisters and leaving you in the capable hands of Cord Jefferson.

Although I'm years away from having babies, I feel like I sort of know how mothers feel when they leave their newborn with a baby-sitter for the first time. Cord, don't be mad at me if I send random emails from internet cafes asking if you're having any trouble with Rewound or Minority Report. I'm neurotic like that.

See ya on Tuesday, guys and gals. I'll probably have gained about five pasta-and-gelato pounds, but it will have been worth it.

Ciao for now,

Lauren

Hello, all. My name is Cord Jefferson, and as of this very moment I'll be joining the venerable Lauren Williams here at Stereohyped.

Perhaps you've previously enjoyed my work on Mollygood, Stereohyped's rumormongering sister site. Perhaps, as some have, you've disliked it. Perhaps you had never even heard of Mollygood until I just name-checked it (twice). Any opinion you might hold is welcome, and, probably at one point or another, deserved.

But let's try to start anew here and make believers out of everyone. I'll try to convince you, dear readers, that I am worthy of a position next to – although slightly beneath – Ms Williams, while simultaneously trying to convince myself that the Internet offers a forum in which a writer can discuss something other than Paris Lohan and still manage to maintain peoples' attention.

I come to you from Brooklyn by way of Arizona, Saudi Arabia and Greece. After spending a sixth of my life at a small college in Virginia, I fled to Los Angeles for three inelegant years. I love hip-hop but can't stand bling, and most of the time I'd like to see MTV fall into the sea. The picture above was taken two weeks ago when I was at the Guinness factory in Dublin.

I can't guarantee you I'll be the same as Lauren, but rest assured I'll do my best to maintain the quality you've come to expect from the best black-interest blog on the Internet.

Women, Latinos, Blacks, and, after they overwhelmingly chose Hillary Clinton in the California primary, Asians are big news in politics these days. But many of the people who belong to one or more of the above groups are getting increasingly pissed off at how their political choices are being trivialized in the mainstream media — particularly when the automatic assumption is made that the majority of Latinos and Asians voted for Hillary simply because they hate blacks. Last night, I had a little g-chat about the mainstream media's election coverage with my blogger friends Carmen Van Kerckhove of Racialicious and Maegan "La Mala" Ortiz of Mamita Mala and VivirLatino. Check out their thoughts (and mine) after the jump.

CONTINUED »

I've had many unprofessional moments in my years as a working woman. There was the time during my (brief) newspaper career that I fainted (I had forgotten to eat breakfast) while conducting an interview at the modest home of a just-returned-from-Iraq soldier and awoke reclining in the family's threadbare La-Z-Boy, where I was force fed a couple of pieces of Wonder bread and a glass of orange juice. Then there was the time, when I was an intern at Jane, that I got rained on so severely during my lunch break that my tank top — which, when dry, was totally safe to wear without a bra — became completely see-through. Completely. And for some reason, it took about 4 hours to become opaque again. I had no jacket, and the size-zero samples in the fashion closet wouldn't even fit over my head. Luckily, they liked that sort of thing at Jane (R.I.P.).

Yesterday was one of those unprofessional days. Why? Well, yesterday, Jossip Initiatives boss-man David Hauslaib and I went to a press event for Debbie Allen's all-black production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Terrence Howard was there (whatevs — he had on a hat and a man-purse the whole time), as was Anika Noni Rose (very cute and pleasantly sassy), James Earl Jones (!), Giancarlo Esposito, Mr. Gaines, Debbie Allen, and…Phylicia Rashad.

Phylicia Rashad was where the unprofessional bit came in.

CONTINUED »

Last night, I braved humiliation (cross-continental air travel in multi-colored pajamas) and jet lag to attend Victoria's Secret and Virgin American Airlines' first pajama party in the sky. Seriously.

I arrived at JFK, along with Tia Williams, of the blog Shake Your Beauty and my mother's womb, for a pre-boarding reception at the Virgin Airlines gate with food, drinks, low-tier models milling about wearing Victoria's Secret flannel pajamas (tied artfully to reveal midriffs and paired with stilettos), airport workers ogling said models, and a table with free pajamas for those, unlike myself, who had not taken the "wear pajamas" instructions to heart. I took a pair, anyway.

The crowd was a mix of Virgin and Victoria's Secret employees, press, some excited sweepstakes winners, and, hilariously, a handful of extremely confused civilians who had purchased what they thought was a normal ticket to LAX and instead found themselves among a throng of pajama wearers and flashbulbs. Most of them went with the flow, which was generous, considering that the flight was very delayed. This was due in part to the not-so-timely arrival of the pajama party's hostesses, Selita Ebanks and Miranda Kerr, who smiled beautifully for pictures before ducking onto the plane, where they greeted all the passengers as we entered. Selita liked my PJs, in case you're wondering. She also liked Nick Cannon (maybe), so I'm not sure it was such a great compliment.

CONTINUED »

Four of the Jena Six were back in court today, and protests were planned in cities across the nation. Bryant Purvis — you might remember him from the BET Hip Hop Awards red carpet — was the last of the group to be arraigned. He pleaded not guilty; his lawyer said he was 30 feet away from the brawl when it happened.

There hasn't been much buzz on the blogs or, well, anywhere about this. Are we over the Jena Six? This was one of the topics I discussed today on NPR's News & Notes Blogger Roundtable, along with Desmond Burton of AfroNerd and Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill Politics, both of whom are very smart and funny. We also chatted whether it means anything that Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes endorsed of Rudy Giuliani. Our consensus: No.

You can listen to it here.

• Common might permanently give up music for movies. I'll miss him, but at least he'll still be around. [SP]

• A small consolation for not winning the Great Album Debut Race of 2007? [AHH]

• Have minority-run foster care agencies in NYC failed the very children they were supposed to protect? [NYT]

• Dame Dash complains about Jay-Z for the millionth time. Bitter much? [Bossip]

• Just in case you want to hear me and my friend Carmen Van Kerckhove of New Demographic gossip about celebrities and race on her latest Addicted to Race podcast…[ATR]

Friday night, Stereohyped hit up the red carpet at Ciara's 22nd birthday party (one of 7 parties on a 5-city birthday tour) at Runway in NYC. It was raining*, which caused attendees like Lenny Kravitz, Missy Elliot, and Fabolous to skip the red carpet and duck into the club. Ciara, of course, was on hand to talk to Stereohyped. And I'd like to think that it wasn't because she had to, it being her party and all, but because she wanted to. She discusses T.I., her love for blogs, and crazy rumors on the premiere episode of Stereohyped TV.**

–Not on the video, but important to note. She stands by the "good friend" story, but her face pretty much lights up when 50 Cent's name is mentioned. True story.

*Note to self: after getting rained on, touch up makeup before stepping in front of the camera.

**Courtesy of Zach Golden, videographer extraordinaire.

Admit it. You have just been dying to put an actual voice to these words you read everyday. Good news: I was a guest on NPR today. Bad news: it's not such a great voice, and I'm going to need to retire "you know" from my repertoire.

I was joined on News & Notes' weekly blogger's roundtable by Shay Riley of Booker Rising and Brandon Whitney of Homeland Colors. Today's topics were the Jena Six's BET Hip Hop Awards cameo, Bill Cosby's Meet the Press appearance, and the acquittal of the defendants in the boot camp death case, all of which are things you pretty much know my opinions (which I'm much better at expressing in written form, unfortunately) on if you read the blog. Still, it's fun to listen. Click here to check it out.

Don Imus found out the hard way — until things got really easy and lucrative, of course — that hair is a touchy subject in the African American community. So touchy, in fact, that if you call a group of us nappy-headed, an army of people will want your head.

But why? Well, the obvious answer is that we live in a society that has an Anglo-influenced standard of beauty. And no matter how far we've come on our generations-long journey to love ourselves, not only in spite of the way we look but because of it, little black girls still have to battle against fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries that teach them, either directly or indirectly, that long and straight is in and short and kinky is out. Little black boys get the same message.They become adults with these ideas still firmly implanted in their heads…and the cycle continues.

CONTINUED »