• U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, whose hair twists have been an inspiration to young girls and part of her personal identity and political brand, said Thursday that she has gone bald due to the autoimmune condition alopecia. The freshman Massachusetts Democrat made a video for The Root, a black-focused website, in which she revealed her bald head and said she felt compelled to go public due to the impact her Senegalese twists had on supporters. Senegalese twists are a protective hairstyle worn by black women, much like braided hairstyles. Pressley, 45, who called her hair story "both personal and political," said she noticed back in the fall that her hair was falling out. The hair loss progressed in chunks until the night before the Dec. 18 House vote on impeachment articles against President Donald Trump, when she said she lost the last of it. Calling it "a moment of transformation not of my choosing," Pressley donned a wig, explained her vote on the House floor, then fled to a bathroom stall. "I felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt betrayed," Pressley said. "And then, I also felt that I was participating in a cultural betrayal because of all the little girls who write me letters, come up to me, take selfies with me. Hashtag twist nation." While Pressley kept her hair loss a secret, revealing it only to close friends and family, she knew she would go public when she felt ready. "I felt like I owed all those little girls an explanation," she said. "My husband says I don't, that everything isn't political. The reality is I'm black, I'm a black woman. And I'm a black woman in politics, and everything I do is political."
• Rapper Eminem once again dropped a surprise album, releasing Music to Be Murdered By on Friday -- along with a video that calls for changes to gun laws. The follow-up to 2018's Kamikaze -- also released without warning -- was announced on Twitter just after midnight. The cover art features blood spatter and a bearded Eminem clad in a suit and fedora and holding a shovel. An alternate cover features the same splatter, with a now hatless Eminem holding both a hatchet and a gun to his head in an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 album of the same name: "Inspired by the master, Uncle Alfred!" Eminem tweeted. The Detroit rapper's new music video for "Darkness," one of the album's 20 tracks, depicts a shooting at a concert, specifically alluding to the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead. It closes with audio and video footage of other recent mass shootings and an appeal to register to vote. "When will this end? When enough people care," reads the text at the end of the video. "Make your voice heard and help change gun laws in America."
A Section on 01/18/2020