The Root

What does it take to build a world? For Namina Forma, it took drawing on both her experiences growing up in Sierra Leone and America to help create the world of her first YA fantasy novel, The Gilded Ones (Penguin Random House).Read more...

Black in the Day is an ongoing series about Black nostalgia that covers very specific topics. This week, it’s all about words or phrases that you might have heard growing up.Read more...

New York Attorney General Letitia James will be running for governor according to sources close to her office. She is expected to announce her bid for the November 2022 election later this week. In 2018, James became both the first woman and Black person elected to serve as the state’s attorney general.Read more...

After noticing that most of the Black people she saw on the news with COVID-19 were obese, Brianna Oyewo, who was nearly 300 pounds, transformed her body during the height of a global epidemic.

Remember in Baby Boy, when Sweet Pea is about to sock one of the kids who did Jody dirty, and he goes, “Awww, shit. This nigga got heart!”? That’s the Oklahoma City Thunder.Read more...

On the latest episode of Facebook Watch’s popular series, Red Table Talk, co-hosts Jada Pinkett-Smith and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, aka Gammy, sat down with Academy Award-winning actress and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow for a conversation on all things sex and sexual wellness.Read more...

Nine-time world champion Claressa Shields, who became boxing’s first-ever two-division champion in March, has been on an undefeated warpath throughout the course of her professional fighting career. And in her quest to satiate her desire for an even bigger challenge, in June, she courageously made the leap into mixed…Read more...

The ongoing back-and-forth feud between on-again, off-again friends and former Real Housewives of Atlanta stars NeNe Leakes and Cynthia Bailey has just added a new layer.Read more...

“Girl, you saw this Peloton x Beyoncé series? You, me, 6 a.m.”Read more...

The life of Dwight “DJ” Grant came to a tragic end on the evening of October 17. He was stabbed in the neck with a knife, and his chest was pierced open by the thrust of a sword. Police say a surveillance camera captured footage of the incident that left an 18-year-old high school student dead and could forever change…Read more...

As the only Black driver in the history of Formula One, it’s safe to say that Lewis Hamilton is in a very unique position every time he hits the race track. To that end, he’s been very vocal in the past about the need to improve diversity throughout the sport and makes it a point to use his own platform to call for…Read more...

With the amount of confidence an unidentified man had to throw paint on the George Floyd statue in New York City’s Union Square Park earlier this month (in broad daylight, by the way), I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought he’d never get caught.Read more...

“Before we take on our abusers, survivors must take all the time we need to heal,” says Drew Dixon, the acclaimed music exec who was among several women to go public with rape allegations against Russell Simmons in the documentary On the Record. During a press conference at the New York offices of victim’s services…Read more...

While the nation waited on pins and needles for every discovery made in the Gabby Petito case, Black people wondered where the concern (and massive amounts of media coverage) was for missing Black persons. Especially in the case of Jelani Day.Read more...

First things first, let me just caveat this story by making it abundantly clear that this is NOT an Azealia Banks stan account.Read more...

Politics are weird AF. For instance, the Virginia governor’s race—one I happen to be witnessing (via force) from a front-row seat in Washington, D.C.—has reached extinction-level event levels of mudslinging. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee whose ads make me hate him as a person, and Terry McAuliffe, the…Read more...

The trial for Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teenager who is accused of shooting and killing two protestors and wounding another in Kenosha, Wis., last summer, begins next week and there’s already a feeling that a miscarriage of justice may take place.Read more...

You know, Colin, I’m kinda hurt, bruh.Read more...

The Real Housewives of Atlanta are heading back to our screens for season 14 soon, only this time, we’ll be seeing a mix of old and new faces.

In case you haven’t noticed, there are plenty of job openings every-damn-where. But while most of them have been abandoned due to inept leadership, unfavorable work conditions, or meager wages, there are a handful of rather desirable head coaching vacancies at Division I college football programs like USC and LSU. Yet…Read more...

Being the James Bond enthusiast that I am, I recently went to the movies to see No Time To Die (Daniel Craig is still the man, I might add). This wasn’t the first time I’ve been to the movies since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year, but it is definitely the first big release I’ve attended.Read more...

Sedrick Altheimer is coming for the justice he seeks after a swarm of Tacoma, Wa., police officers descended on him in his car while he was delivering newspapers on Jan. 27. Altheimer was surrounded, questioned and searched after Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer made a frantic call for backup accusing the newspaper …Read more...

Is it just us, or has Halloween significantly lost its luster since the world became a real-life horror show? Forgive us if we could not care less about costumes, passing out candy, or the annual candy corn debate this year (for the record: we’ll allow it seasonally—now pass us a caramel apple), but when reality’s…Read more...

Earlier this month, in the aftermath of former five-time UFC champion Tyron Woodley bringing shame and dishonor to our ancestors after losing his bout with serial idiot Jake Paul, Mike Tyson discussed the possibility of rectifying such an egregious wrong by beating the shit out of either Jake or his brother, Logan,…Read more...

Being the first Black anything is a tough enough burden to carry, but being the first Black female vice president might be an even heavier load. The weight of responsibility begs the question Black folk must always ask: am I being given the right task and am I being set up to win or fail?Read more...

Just two days after the final season premiere of Insecure on Sunday and just one hour after actress and comedian Amanda Seales came under fire from members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated for her portrayal as a fictional soror on the show, director Melina Matsoukas spoke out in defense of the decision.Read more...

One of my favorite moments of the 1990s—and I mean this sincerely—was when LL Cool J did a commercial for GAP in 1999 where he not only showed up rocking a FUBU hat but also worked “for us, by us on the low” into the rap he did about GAP. In one 30-second spot, LL Cool J used all of his cultural cool to effectively…Read more...

While most of us spent this past weekend either picking out our Halloween costumes or catching up with friends, dancer Angela “Angyil” McNeal spent hers laying waste to any and all dancers in her way during the Red Bull “Dance Your Style” National Finals USA. In front of an electrifying crowd at Washington, D.C.’s…Read more...

In recorded history, Rosa Parks is largely credited with the act of resistance that prompted the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama on December 1, 1955—which, in turn, became a catalytic event in the broader civil rights movement of the last century. But nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested…Read more...

On Monday, Minnesota’s Congressional delegation introduced a resolution to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Purple One himself, the artist forever known as Prince.Read more...

Before the Central Park Five, there was the Groveland Four.Read more...

The critically acclaimed Watchmen gave the new generation a glimpse into what transpired during the Tulsa Race Massacre. Black Wall Street—what the neighborhood of Greenwood was called because of the residents’ affluence—was destroyed in a matter of two days, leaving about 300 Black people dead and even more without…Read more...

Dave Chappelle has issued a response to the backlash following the release of his latest comedy special on Netflix, The Closer.Read more...

In the aftermath of a protest outside of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Sunday, in which protesters chanted, “No vaccine mandate, stand with Kyrie!” and waved signs in support of Kyrie Irving’s decision not to adhere to the city’s vaccine mandate, boxing legend Floyd Mayweather has come to the defense of the mercurial…Read more...

Eric Garner’s final words, “I can’t breathe,” still reverberate in the streets more than seven years after his death, driven by a movement fighting for justice and accountability for victims of police brutality. On Monday, a summary judicial inquiry was opened in the case. This is a rare judicial process that allows…Read more...

For the last five decades, the Black Panther Party has been synonymous with Black freedom and resistance—a legacy that endured even after co-founder Dr. Huey P. Newton was murdered in 1989 in Oakland, Ca., the organization’s birthplace.Read more...

Fam, this is not a drill: Unless you and your nearest and dearest have decided to forego gift-giving during this swiftly approaching holiday season, you should get started shopping—now. No, not because of any tired tropes about our own, culturally specific timetable, but because, as noted by the homie and VSB Senior…Read more...

Last Sunday, hundreds of demonstrators met under a giant mural of Ahmaud Arbery in the coastal city of Brunswick, Ga., in order to push for justice prior to the jury selection in the trial against three white men accused of killing the Black jogger.Read more...

At one point in time, the public square in Franklin, Tenn., known for its bustling city shops and eateries as well as a statue of a Confederate soldier in its center, called “Chip” by the locals, was also the site of public lynchings and a slave auction block.Read more...

I’m a person who writes for a living, right? Like, my entire job is to sit here and put words in a Google Doc and get them edited to perfection by my super smart editors to ensure what I wrote makes sense. I do that on a pretty regular basis.Read more...

Here we go again.Read more...

On Sunday night, the fifth and final season of the critically acclaimed HBO series Insecure premiered on HBO and HBO Max.

Donald Trump Jr.’s got a long road ahead of him if he’s ever going to dethrone his namesake for the worst Trump award. I mean, Junior would have to ignore a deadly infectious disease that could kill millions, and then politicize the only possible preventions America has from becoming a horror movie, but let’s just say…Read more...

Losing your child is a pain no parent should ever have to endure.Read more...

Minneapolis police officer Brian Cummings was pursuing a suspect in a stolen vehicle when he crashed into the Jeep of an innocent Black motorist at 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood this past July. Now, Cummings is being charged with two felonies.

The fifth and final season of Insecure finally made its way back to our small screens on Sunday and like most of you, we were glued to our television and laptop screens to see how our fave fab four friend group, namely Issa Dee (Issa Rae), Molly Carter (Yvonne Orji), Kelli Prenny (Natasha Rothwell), and Tiffany Dubois…Read more...

Well, hello there. Let’s get to it.Read more...

Well, what do you know? Turns out that racist members of Congress helped racist followers of Trump plan the racist attack on Congress because the snowflakes couldn’t stand the fact that their guy lost.

I have to be honest; I haven’t read much about supply chain shortages and the like. I remember when COVID-19 first became a thing in the first quarter of 2020, and you and your friends bought out all of the toilet paper and paper towels, and then the news started telling me that “supply chain shortages” were going to…Read more...

A white Naperville, Illinois high school student will serve two years probation and 100 hours of community service after posting a Craigslist ad offering up his Black classmate as a “slave for sale” in November 2019.