The Root

Nine New York City firefighters have been suspended after an investigation found they were sharing several racist messages and memes on their phones.

An Oregon grand jury has indicted a 27-year-old man who prosecutors said shot and killed a Black man after he spoke to his girlfriend.Read more...

A 24-year-old Texas man admitted in federal court that he traveled to Minneapolis solely to create mayhem during social unrest that followed former police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd.

I’ve seen some fairly extra homecoming proposals in my day. Like messages on billboards, performances of “Call Me Maybe” in the hallway and various others.

Remember when we told you about the lawsuit filed over a Confederate monument that has stood in the mostly Black Tuskegee, Ala. for over a century?

Not too long after signing a bill that would downgrade the act of illegal voting from a second-degree felony to a misdemeanor, Gov. Greg Abbott said “Sike!” and is now pushing to reverse that decision.

In January 2020, Rep. Ayanna Pressley came to a The Root video studio and opened up about a part of herself that she’d kept close despite being an extremely popular progressive Congresswoman and member of “the Squad” who stayed in the public eye. Pressley revealed that she was living with alopecia.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Skils’kin for allegedly retaliating against a Black employee who complained about racism in the workplace.Read more...

At this point, it’s not exactly a secret that Ben Simmons, who holds the dubious distinction of being one of the best defenders in the NBA while also being its most reluctant shooter, wants no parts of the Philadelphia 76ers.Read more...

Fans of The Wendy Williams Show will have to wait a little while longer for their beloved host to return.Read more...

One day, God was walking on the soft grass of an abandoned field. He was wearing his usual all white Air Force 1s, when he stepped in what he knew was dog shit. With nothing to clean his shoe, he tossed the shoe into a nearby empty lot and thus Florida was born.

Bodycam footage of the Chicago cop who violently wrestled with a Black woman walking her dog in a park was released Thursday, and it looks even more violent than the witness cellphone video capturing the altercation late August.Read more...

Charlotte, N.C., officials have numbers from a new report showing Black and Hispanic drivers are far more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers, but they aren’t sure if racial bias is at play.Read more...

A new study found that not only are police killings undercounted by more than half, but Black men’s killings are mislabeled at higher rates than any other race. From 1980 to 2019, more than 55 percent of the 31,000 killings by cops were assigned other causes in federal death data.Read more...

Given all the turbulence and turmoil of the last two years, I, like many of you, have been yearning for the days of yore, when things weren’t so *gestures wildly* .Read more...

I know, I know!Read more...

In the post-Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl Halftime Show era, the NFL has gone to great lengths to produce family-friendly entertainment (while we refill our drinks and nachos) with varied results. But thanks in part to Blue Ivy’s daddy, the first-ever Super Bowl in Los Angeles this century will not only…Read more...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Thursday that returns beachfront property, known as Bruce’s Beach, to descendants of a Black couple who had the land taken away from them after they were forced out of Manhattan Beach nearly one hundred years ago.Read more...

Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black father, was fatally shot on April 11, 2021.Read more...

Louisiana law enforcement is once again being accused of abusing another Black man.

Is there anything Lil Nas X can’t do well?Read more...

According to recent data, the disparity in vaccination rates among Black and white Americans has essentially closed.Read more...

Last week, we told you that The Real Housewives of Atlanta (RHOA) star and model Cynthia Bailey would be turning in her peach and saying goodbye to the Bravo series after 11 seasons.Read more...

If you are an unvaccinated NBA Player, I want you to think about one thing and one thing only: Texas Sen. Ted “I left my constituents freezing while I took my family to Cancun” Cruz stands with you.

Editorial note: This article includes descriptions of rape, sexual assault.

Either Democratic (allegedly) Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) are doing some The Spook Who Sat by the Door shit in which they are actually Republicans who ran as Democrats only to mess everything up from the inside, or….there is no other option. Of course they are Republicans. Their states…Read more...

Raise your hand if you thought 2020 was going to be a magical year—bonus points if you used phrases like “20-20 vision” when describing the new vistas you expected to open to you in what turned out to be a deeply disturbing year. Suffice to say, 2020 scoffed at our best laid plans, a moment comedian, actress, producer…Read more...

Schools across the country are making the news as sites of heated political debates and culture wars as parents and teachers waste the school board meetings on defining Critical Race Theory and political flags. Students in one school district are doing something about the sudden uptick in racist incidents at their…Read more...

In this multipart series, HBCU alums share their favorite moments from their alma mater as a testament to what these institutions have meant to them.Read more...

Paul Nicholas Miller was calling for a race war and using ethnic slurs when he spoke to his thousands of followers on social media before the law caught up with him in March. Tuesday, Miller cried in court as a judge sentenced him to 41 months in prison on multiple firearms charges, according to NBC Miami.Read more...

Ellen Pompeo is spilling some arguably unnecessary tea about her time working with Denzel Washington.Read more...

“Racism has no place here. We support the Black community.”Read more...

School board members around the country are asking President Joe Biden, the FBI and Secret Service to protect them from threats stemming from COVID-19 and Critical Race Theory debates. National School Boards Association president Viola Garcia and interim executive director and CEO Chip Slaven wrote a letter outlining…Read more...

Dearly Beloved,

Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing and acclaimed filmmaker Haile Gerima have partnered up to bring the latter’s groundbreaking 1993 film Sankofa back to the masses. Per a press release sent to The Root, the film is being re-released in stunning 4k and was “developed from 20 years of research into the trans-Atlantic trade…Read more...

There’s something so American about racial slurs being thrown around at a high school football game.Read more...

In the coming weeks, The Root will unveil the 2021 class of The Root 100, our highly anticipated annual list of the most influential African Americans. As our regular readers know, it’s not our only list celebrating Black excellence; we also recognize our favorite tastemakers via The Glow Up 50 and up-and-comers…Read more...

If you’ve watched Lovecraft Country, then you might remember when Leti moved into a white Chicago neighborhood with her sister and friends. The neighbors put up warning signs, tied bricks to the steering wheels of cars and burned a cross on the lawn during her housewarming party.Read more...

It doesn’t even matter if cannabis is legal or not.

As the National Basketball Players Association and the NBA continue to negotiate how the league’s health and safety protocols will be implemented this upcoming season, the NBA is making one thing abundantly clear: If you’re an unvaccinated player and miss games due to local COVID-19 guidelines, your paycheck is gonna…Read more...

In recent months, we’ve seen more and more businesses enact strict guidelines in order to protect their profitability and curb the spread of the coronavirus. Specifically, many of them have made COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory, and in turn, going as far as to terminate employees who refuse to comply. While…Read more...

No one hoodie should have all this power, but when it’s designed by Kanye West, it inevitably will. The latest drop in Ye’s Yeezy x Gap collaboration dropped Wednesday, and suffice to say we were a little...underwhelmed. Since news of the entertainer-designer’s 10-year deal with the brand broke last year, we’ve been…Read more...

Mirror Bitch, Mirror Bitch, on the wall—this final season of Insecure is about to make me bawl!!Read more...

For the first time ever, an all-Black team will attempt to scale all 29,032 feet of Mount Everest.Read more...

Connecticut Sun forward Jonquell Jones is a lot of things.

Two episodes into the FOX straight-to-series show Our Kind of People and I’m about ready to crown it as one of the most ridiculous shows of all time. Which is saying something considering that it’s brought to us by Lee Daniels, the same man who brought us The Butler where a solid 80 percent of the movie was entirely…Read more...

On this week’s edition of Celebs Say the Darndest Things, Bill Cosby and hip-hop icon Chuck D are the latest to give their unsolicited two cents about R. Kelly following the entertainer’s guilty verdict in Brooklyn federal court on Monday.

The video of former security guard Gregory Livingston fatally shooting Alvin Motley Jr. at a Kroger gas station was shown in court for the first time on Tuesday at a probable cause hearing.Read more...

Former President Donald J. Trump, aka “Touch me and I will sue you!,” has lost another court case after former White House “apprentice” Omarosa Manigault Newman challenged the orange overlord’s nondisclosure agreement after writing her tell-all book about working in Satan’s administration.