The Root

Current mob boss and Former President Donald Trump wanted the Department of Justice to lie and say that the perfectly normal and secure election that didn’t have him as the projected winner was corrupt.

As has been well documented on this very site, my 32-year tenure as an Orlando Magic fan has been a winding road paved in torment and agony. When the Magic were swept in the 1995 NBA Finals? The Artist Formerly Known as My Father chased me around the house with a broom. When Tracy McGrady bragged about making it to…Read more...

After 16 years of incarceration, 76-year-old Gwen Levi was finally at home reconnecting with friends and family, and taking care of her elderly mother. She was even starting to learn the computer skills necessary to become a COVID contact tracer and re-enter the workforce. While Levi, a mother, grandmother, friend,…Read more...

Amid the growing outrage over DaBaby’s homophobic comments at Rolling Loud last weekend, hip-hop aficionado and The Roots drummer and songwriter Questlove spoke his piece on the matter as well.

In the immortal words of Black Twitter: “Stay out of Black folks’ business”—and arguably, few writers have known how to interpret the layers and nuances of Black folks’ business better than journalist, essayist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston’s insistence upon eschewing elitism and assimilation to center a…Read more...

Another day, another violent arrest of a Black person that began with an alleged nonviolent offense.Read more...

I’m sorry, but did someone proclaim this week to be National Dudes Say the Dumbest Things Week and didn’t tell us about it?Read more...

On Thursday, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee became the third Black House Democrat to be arrested in three weeks for participating in a voting rights demonstration outside of the Hart Senate Building.

While the Los Angeles Lakers are the only team on planet Earth who are able to routinely flip marginal assets into big-name players—for those who don’t believe Laker privilege is a real thing, try being an Orlando Magic fan for a decade or three—I have no idea how in the hell Russell Westbrook is supposed to restore…Read more...

What’s better than being The Baddest Bitch in the Room? Paying it forward; which is what music management impresario turned producer turned author/screenwriter Sophia Chang is doing with Unlock Her Potential, the platform she launched last fall to give women of color one of the key components they most often lack on…Read more...

Somewhere, at a television station I cannot find, there exists a clip of me singing the national anthem with tears streaming down my face.Read more...

Listen: It is well known that white women suffer from Black woman envy. In Kim Kardashian’s America and on Bhad Bhabie’s internet, there is no doubt about this. But that white woman melanin-vy doesn’t always manifest itself in appropriation and Black-fishing—sometimes it’s just a white woman who decides to sit down…Read more...

In recent years, we’ve seen NBA superstar Chris Paul do plenty to put on for HBCUs. He regularly pays tribute with his attire, led an early voting march and unveiled an “HBCU Sneaker Tour” in October, and currently attends Winston-Salem State to complete his bachelor’s degree in communications. And in keeping that…Read more...

White folks and hoteps listen up: You aren’t courageous or a patriot or an abolitionist because you don’t wear a mask; you’re just a maskhole. And now the Capitol Police are going to arrest your ass.

The third annual African American Film Critics Association TV Honors has announced the recipients for the 2021 season!Read more...

“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”Read more...

A few days ago, between news of GOAT-level USA gymnast Simone Biles pulling out of some events at the 2020-in-2021 Tokyo Olympics for mental health reasons, and DaBaby literally sounding dumber and dumber with each sentence, you might have also seen slow news day fodder in the form of comments made by Ashton Kutcher…Read more...

Prosecutors in Ingham County, Mich., recently announced they will no longer pursue criminal charges in cases where police officers pulled motorists over for something minor and then went on a fishing expedition searching for evidence of more serious crimes. It’s a new policy meant to reduce the potential for racial…Read more...

I was born in the mid-’70s, but I am distinctly a child of the ’80s. It is the era in which I came of age, alongside a generation raised largely on John Hughes and “Quiet Storm.” In fact, the oft-forgotten Generation X was in many ways foundational—and groundbreaking. In many ways, we are the bridge between the analog…Read more...

Watch out world...the fourth season of Grown-ish is going there.Read more...

Apologies are like coupons; they come with a list of rules.

(This is part two of a two-part series where writer Christina Blacken takes the Ford Bronco Sport to Chicago’s surrounding wilderness).Read more...

*Deep, heavy, Negro spiritual sigh*Read more...

Last weekend, a white man in Cold Spring, Minn., reportedly rammed a stolen SUV into an interracial couple’s house in an alleged racially motivated attack. Police say he exited the vehicle in front of the home after placing a large slab of granite on the gas pedal and that there was a teddy bear in a noose hanging…Read more...

Willie O’Ree, the first Black person to ever play in the NHL, is finally getting his flowers—or should I say his Congressional Gold Medal.Read more...

The mayonnaise-slathered rally on Jan. 6 was supposed to be a peaceful protest of white folks who don’t understand how elections work. Because they didn’t understand that the vote that day to certify the 2020 presidential election was procedural, they gathered outside the Capitol to yell and shout and “yee-haw” as…Read more...

When your status as the greatest gymnast of all time is undisputed, it’s easy to lose yourself in your accomplishments. But after withdrawing from Thursday’s individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics in order to “protect her body and mind,” Simone Biles took to Twitter on Wednesday to thank her fans for…Read more...

During Tuesday’s House select committee examining the Capitol coup attempt, there were tears. There was justifiable outrage over Republicans’ unwillingness to admit how close the throng of domestic terrorists came to overthrowing the government of the United States. There was shock, sadness and public shame.Read more...

There’s a reason white conservatives tend to discuss race relations in America, and whatever it is they think Critical Race Theory is, in circles that are almost exclusively white and conservative. They know their weak-and-fragile-ass arguments will fall apart under the slightest bit of outsider scrutiny, so it’s best…Read more...

Everything old is new again. The adage is old too, but what has us suddenly feeling young again is the revival of Cross Colours, a Black-owned cultural revolution when it hit its peak in the 1990s along with the hip-hop generation. With help from big names like Bruno Mars and Cardi B—who were drippin’ with “Finesse”…Read more...

“The most dangerous creature on this whole Earth, is a woman who knows how to think.”

If you’re a member of Rihanna’s Navy, no doubt you’re already well informed on how good the singer-actress-entrepreneur purportedly smells—it’s the stuff of celebrity legend.Read more...

Remember in 2020, when we all made resolutions to read more during lockdown but instead, we made a lot of sourdough and banana bread and downloaded TikTok?

Here’s a question: What the hell is wrong with the Aurora Police Department?Read more...

I haaaaaaaaaate strip clubs (Sorry! Paying women to disrobe has never been my ministry), but I can tell you exactly where I was on Friday, November 19, 2004.Read more...

By this point, anyone interested in equity in retail should be familiar with the 15 Percent Pledge, the initiative launched by Brothers Vellies founder Aurora James in June 2020, in response to both calls for racial justice and equity and the largely performative promises of the beauty and fashion industries. Calling…Read more...

I know it’s hard to believe, but America used to be a fucked up place.

On Tuesday, the United States government auctioned off a rare Wu-Tang album to an unknown buyer for an undisclosed amount.Read more...

Our Forever President Barack Obama, who abandoned foreign policy in order to drop podcasts, curate playlists, and launch a cinematic universe that would put Marvel’s to shame, is now a strategic partner and minority owner of NBA Africa because of course, he is.

Tuesday marked the fourth anniversary of the day Gemmel Moore was found dead from a drug overdose in the West Hollywood, Calif., home of wealthy and white Democratic donor Ed Buck—it also marks the day Buck was finally held accountable for Moore’s death.

To Michigan Rep. Jewell Jones, just know that I feel you.

I’ve never been an Olympic gymnast a day of my life, but I absolutely know what it’s like to have a demanding career in the public eye in which I’m expected to perform at the best of my abilities every single day despite facing immeasurable scrutiny. I know what it’s like to have whatever stressors or personal demons…Read more...

It seems da mess surrounding DaBaby’s comments at the superspreader event Rolling Loud Miami last weekend continues to evolve.Read more...

QAnon apostle Marjorie Taylor Greene, unsanctioned high school chaperone Matt Gaetz and the self-proclaimed “dumbest man in Congress” were forced to evacuate a press conference when their regularly scheduled bullshit parade turned into an all-out shitshow.Read more...

Have you heard what “many people are saying?”

Is this a safe space? I need to confess something to you all.Read more...

The barbaric constraints of the Jim Crow era in the South are writ large upon American history. We are well aware of how Black citizens were relegated to the backs of buses, not permitted to eat in restaurants or use general restroom facilities, and were often brutally discouraged from pursuing their right to advocate…Read more...

On December 22, 2020, 47-year-old Andre Hill was shot and killed in Columbus, Ohio, by former Officer Adam Coy, who has since been charged with murder in Hill’s death. Coy’s body camera was turned off when he shot Hill, who was standing in a garage armed with nothing but a cellphone in an incident where even the…Read more...

There’s about to be some more melanin in this mid-century modern house!Read more...

More often than not, the Olympics opening ceremony is tacky but overwhelmingly bland; an oxymoron, if you will. The ceremony doesn’t always reflect the grace and pure talent that come with being an Olympian—but Telfar Clemens’ “collection” of Liberian Olympic uniforms checks all of the boxes.Read more...