The Root

With the NFL season set to kick off in September, the conversation has shifted from whether or not players are vaccinated, to how in the hell the league still expects to have “full stadiums” despite the Delta and Lambda variants acting a complete ass. Each NFL franchise has been given carte blanche to impose and…Read more...

After a few delays due to various legalities and the ongoing pandemic, the long-awaited trial for Robert “R.” Kelly has finally begun.Read more...

Nakia Porter, a 33-year-old software engineer, is suing the Solano County Police Department in Northern California for her violent arrest last summer.Read more...

No. This isn’t about freedom. This is about freedoms.Read more...

There’s a literary genre kicking all other genre’s asses and taking over the literary world and TikTok—and I bet you know what it is.Read more...

On Bleacher Report’s Chips, three-time NBA champ Draymond Green chops it up with some of the biggest stars in the league to discuss whatever chip they have on their shoulder. In the latest episode, Dray was joined by former teammate Kevin Durant for what’s easily one of the juiciest interviews of the year.Read more...

After going blow-for-blow in her directorial debut Bruised, in which she also stars, it seems Halle Berry might have another opponent on her hands.

Sometimes, you just need a little something to get you over the hump of a difficult week. While I may not be able to articulate exactly what has made this week so difficult (more like let me count the ways, even if only at the halfway point), it’s been a struggle. If you’ve been struggling like I have, perhaps this…Read more...

What you doing? Not listening to Silk Sonic’s new album.Read more...

On Tuesday, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office will conduct a review of former transit officer Anthony Pirone’s involvement in the shooting death of Oscar Grant back in 2009. According to the Associated Press, this decision came after Alameda County’s district attorney, Nancy O’Malley,…Read more...

A controversy sparked last fall by a portion of the soundtrack for Rihanna’s live-streamed 2020 Savage X Fenty show, subtitled “Vol. 2,” has a new chapter. To recap, as The Root reported last October: “A segment of the hourlong production was set to a musical track that reportedly included an Islamic Hadith—otherwise…Read more...

In the latest episode of racist Karens, a woman who is reportedly employed at a Florida elementary school was placed on leave after video allegedly captured her hurling racist and ableist insults towards young children and residents of the Kings Lake neighborhood in Collier County, Fla.Read more...

The family of Anthony Huber, one of the two men fatally shot during a police brutality protest last summer, has filed a federal civil lawsuit against the local Kenosha law enforcement.Read more...

Drizzy, noooooooooo! (For all my Fresh Prince fans, that was for you.)Read more...

With Netflix’s Untold: Malice at the Palace breaking the internet since its Aug. 10 premiere, hoop heads have scurried to social media to offer their thoughts and opinions on the night that changed professional sports forever.Read more...

A San Diego man was sentenced to two years in federal prison Monday on weapons charges after making violent online threats about Black Lives Matter demonstrations .Read more...

Eleven years ago, Hansel Emmanuel Donato Domínguez was trapped under rubble for nearly two hours after a wall collapsed on him. Eventually, his father, a former professional basketball player, came to his rescue. The harrowing ordeal might’ve cost Donato Dominguez his left arm, but it only strengthened his desire to…Read more...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19, and I’m sure we all saw this coming.Read more...

Home Depot allegedly discriminated discriminated against a Minneapolis employee for their Black Lives Matter activism at work, according to a complaint filed by a regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Read more...

Last year, The Root reported that Michael Frederick Jr. was arrested and charged for a string of attacks on a Black Michigan family’s home. Today, according to the Associated Press, he has been sentenced to four to 10 years.Read more...

Two new studies released on Tuesday showed a breakdown of health care spending per person, and both—published in the Journal of the American Medical Association—found that White people spent the most per-person.Read more...

For many of us who grew up reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou for our 9th grade English class, we remember Angelou trying to learn Tut, a complicated language used by enslaved Africans, with her friend Louise while the other kids were learning Pig Latin.Read more...

I told y’all once before that y’all had better keep it cute (read: supportive & encouraging) when it comes to Naomi Osaka, and now, after viewing what went down during Monday’s press conference ahead of the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio—it seems that sentiment bears some repeating.Read more...

A white woman who attracted close to 2 million followers on Instagram after naming her handle, almost identically, to the book title of a best-selling Black female author has apologized for capitalizing off of her work.Read more...

Most Americans will be advised to get a booster shot to protect themselves against the evolving COVID-19 virus, and those shots could be available as early as mid-September.Read more...

BabyFace. Teddy Riley. Patti Labelle. Gladys Knight. DMX. Snoop Dogg. Brandy. Monica.Read more...

In 2007, with no experience in digital marketing, Derrick and Ramunda Young turned their commitment to Black culture and love of reading into Mahogany Books, an online destination for Black literature. Fourteen years later, their business now includes a thriving online store, a retail shop located in the Anacostia…Read more...

A 41-year-old man from Queens, N.Y., pleaded guilty to threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) before and during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Eduard Florea, who supported the far-right group the Proud Boys, also pleaded guilty to a weapons offense after a search of his home by federal agents found more than…Read more...

On Monday, prosecutors from the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Washington announced that officers will not be charged in the police shooting death of Kevin Peterson Jr.Read more...

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its first trove of demographic data from the 2020 census, leading many to divest in cryptocurrency and put all of their money in the rapidly emerging washcloth market.Read more...

Following the devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend, many are doing all they can to lend a helping hand to the country and its citizens.

Trigger Warning: This story contains instances of suicidal ideation.Read more...

In Baltimore, a woman paid a funeral home to cremate her deceased husband and conduct a memorial service, but she alleges that the employees buried her husband at the request of a second woman claiming to be his wife. In her lawsuit against Wylie Funeral Homes, Demetra Street claims that after the January service,…Read more...

Haiti is frantically searching for survivors of a deadly earthquake that leveled towns and cities on Saturday. The 7.2-magnitude earthquake came during a time when Haiti was already battling two other crises: containing the COVID-19 pandemic and the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.Read more...

The praise for New York Attorney General Letitia James is short lived as people question if her office put as much effort in handling the case of Daniel Prude, an unarmed Black man killed by police, as it did in the investigation of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.Read more...

An 18-year-old Black man was fatally shot by a cop at a funeral in North Carolina last November, and the man’s surviving family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, claiming he was only trying to protect a mother and her son during a drive by shooting.Read more...

Many of us were very disappointed to see Sha’Carri Richardson robbed of her opportunity to compete for a medal at the Tokyo Olympics this summer over some damn weed. She was seen as a favorite to medal for the U.S. and is still seen as a rising star in the 100 meter event.Read more...

Isn’t it crazy how every time Lizzo releases a song (or does anything, tbh) and feels good as hell about it, the haters and trolls are always Johnny-on-the-spot ready to bash her about it? If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the Instagram Live Lizzo held over the weekend following the release of her latest…Read more...

We all know the Biden administration prides itself on its many firsts since the 2020 election, and Tori Cooper is the latest addition to the most diverse government in history.Read more...

A 28-year-old Black police officer in Syracuse has filed a federal lawsuit against his department for what he claims is “blatant and extreme racism.” Officer Brandon Hanks and his lawyer further describe the department’s attitude towards Black officers as “Jim Crow culture.”Read more...

Lawmakers in Florida have secured $30 million in funding for African American history museums in need of financial help throughout the state.

Two residence halls at Purdue University have been renamed in honor of sisters Frieda and Winifred Parker, students who attended the university in the 1940s and were the first Black women to live on campus.Read more...

Viola “Mother” Fletcher and Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, sibling survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and their grandchildren were welcomed into Ghana on Saturday to kick off their week-long visit to the African country.

An investigation is underway in Chicago after a man who appeared to be a city employee pulled a North Side family’s Black Lives Matter yard sign out of the ground and turned it face down.

As we’ve seen time and time again in recent years, it’s apparently almost impossible to put up a monument or memorial to a Black person in this country without it being vandalized by racists.

A lawsuit filed against Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, alleges that the couple attempted to convince the woman who accused Petty of sexual assault in the 1990s to recant her account by harassing and intimidating her.

The city of Phoenix hired a team of lawyers to look into their police department after protestors at a Black Lives Matter Rally were charged for being in a gang called “ACAB” or “All Cops Are Bastards.”Read more...

As right-wing politicians across the country are waging an ideological war against Critical Race Theory, most Americans think discussing racism and discrimination is actually a good thing, according to a recent survey.

I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said that if a governor issues an executive order and that governor is the governor of Florida, then fuck that governor because he’s an idiot whose ban on mask mandates is going to let people die.

Hot damn ho, here we go again with another Role Call…well, actually the last time for one Tonja Renée Stidhum, whose last day at The Root is today. Yes, she is writing this lede as an assist to Bella Morais and Shanelle Genai and referring to herself in third person.