Danielle C. Belton
The Root
Saint Louis, MO, United States
Contact Danielle
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Danielle:
28 Days of Black Joy: Going Down South to 'Infinite' Cousins
Like many a child of the Great Migration, all my extended family actually lived nowhere near me. My mother “escaped” Arkansas for Iowa right after graduating from Philander Smith College in Little Rock to become a school teacher, but Iowa was too cold, too white and too far from her ancestral home, so she moved to St. Louis to teach with its much larger Black population and, then, eight-hour… → Read More
28 Days of Black Joy: Mama's Hands
I’m one of those people who falls asleep in the salon chair. → Read More
Exclusive: RHOA Star Kenya Moore and Marc Daly Call It Quits Again
The on-again, off-again, played-out-in-front-of-the-cameras (sometimes) marriage of Brooklyn restaurateur Marc Daly and Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta star, actress and former Miss USA, Kenya Moore, is on the outs again. → Read More
My Daily, Less-Than-5-Minute, Quarantine Skincare Routine
It’s Big Beauty Tuesday here at The Glow Up, and in lieu of our regularly scheduled programming, there’s a glow I felt deserved special attention this week: the glowing skin of The Root’s Editor-in-Face-Chief, Danielle Belton. In fact, Danielle’s skin is so lit-from-within, it recently inspired comedian, actress and author Michelle Buteau to pause mid-interview to compliment it (more on that to… → Read More
Wigging Out During the Pandemic
I have very nice hair. Coveted hair sometimes! Hair that people make a “big deal” about. Once, when my hair was down my back, all black and very long, a woman stopped her car mid-traffic in downtown Washington, D.C. to ask me what products I used. I told her whatever my stylist uses because I’m too lazy to do my own very thick, very “I do what I want to do” frizzy hair. → Read More
What Juneteenth and My Father Taught Me About 'Expectations'
I wouldn’t know Juneteenth without my father. → Read More
Capitalizing the “B” in Black Is Nice, but Actually Hiring Black People in Your Newsroom Is Nicer
At The Root, we’ve had a long-standing debate over capitalizing the “B” in black. Some of us are adamantly for it, while others (myself included) are grammar freaks who think that if we capitalize “black” we would also have to capitalize “white,” and I, personally, have no interest in that as it would continue to center whiteness. Besides, you already capitalize ethnicities such as African… → Read More
#ReclaimMLK Seeks to Combat the Sanitizing of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy
Martin Luther King Jr. had more than “a dream,” but you might not notice that on Monday during observances for his birthday. Somewhere between his assassination and today began an... → Read More
Hercules Goes Black and Doesn’t Look Back in Rousing Production of Disney’s 1997 Animated Musical
In an age where superheroes reign supreme thanks to a successful, multibillion dollar Marvel movies run, New York City’s Public Theater’s Public Works chose to take it back, way back, in terms of an O.G. superhero, in their delightful, multiracial, community-fueled production of Disney’s animated 1997 musical Hercules. → Read More
I Have a Crush on Caftans, Thanks to Designer Junny Hibbert
So, I like clothes, right? → Read More
Director Kenny Leon and Danielle Brooks Bring Blackness to Shakespeare in the Park
As actor Danielle Brooks sings and shines as Beatrice in director Kenny Leon’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, the director can’t help but feel pride in his vision of staging an all-black production in the famed Shakespeare in the Park coming to fruition. → Read More
The Perils of Being ‘Office Oprah’
Once upon a time in a newsroom as white as the newly fallen snow, I stood out as the only black person there—woman or otherwise. I was it. It was me. Trying to rep for millions of black folks while my newsroom’s black population was less than 1 percent. → Read More
Being ‘The Black Snob’ Was a Joke, Until the Day I Actually Became One
“I don’t know how you ended up so bougie when we came out of the same family,” said my baby sister one day over the phone. → Read More
Dear Mariah and Shades on Luke Cage ... I Love You, but 'OMG Please Stop!'
Unlike everyone else in the world, I didn’t watch all of season 2 of Luke Cage until this weekend. So that meant I didn’t get to be thoroughly and properly freaked out by this season’s “It” couple, Mariah Stokes Dillard (Alfre Woodard) and Hernan “Shades” Alvarez (Theo Rossi), until June 30, a full week after everyone else had already freaked out. So I was alone in my freaking out, just flipping… → Read More
A List of Every Stress-Related Illness I’ve Ever Had, Ranked From Horrible to ‘I Think I’m Dying’
When you don’t listen to your body, your body has a way of forcing you to listen. Or at least that’s what my body does, over and over again, from annoying to terrifying effect. When you suffer from stress-induced anxiety, as I do and have since I was a child, you get a host of stress-related illnesses to go with it. → Read More
I Lost 10 Pounds and It All Went to My Head at Harlem Stage’s #Disrupters Gala
It really doesn’t take much with me. → Read More
Jezebel + The Root + Women’s History Month = JezeRoot
We shouldn’t need a Women’s History Month. → Read More
Fast Company Offers Us Warm Wishes About Our Cold Offices
Breaking news! Our office is cold! And it sucks. But management is on it and they’re trying to fix it. If this sounds like a slow news day story to you, it’s not, because Fast Company totally wrote an entire post from some lovable snitches within our blog family at Gizmodo Media Group about the current state of our office space. → Read More
Enjoy Meghan Markle’s #blackgirlmagic royal fantasy. Just don’t get carried away.
Wish her all the happiness in the world. Just remember, Prince Harry isn’t marrying *us*. → Read More
The Glow Up With Supermodel Veronica Webb Is on
Beauty is more than what you look like. It’s more than when you’re dressed nice or you bothered to dust on a little foundation. It’s more than when your shoes are both comfy and cute (or wildly impractical but still to die for). It’s more than when your nails are freshly polished, your melanin is popping and your eyebrows are amazingly “on fleek.” → Read More