The Root

A former officer with the New York Police Department, whose duties once included guarding City Hall and the mayor’s residence, has been charged in what prosecutors describe as a rabid attack on a Capitol officer during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

It would be nice to live in a world where everything made sense. For example, I’d love to know why Taylor Swift is so popular in America, yet I don’t know one Black person who can sing three of her songs. I’d love to know why Colin Kaepernick doesn’t have a job yet a Trump-loving white boy can quarterback the…Read more...

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G and UGG bedsheets lead Wednesday’s best deals.

On Tuesday, Rochester, N.Y., continued America’s long-standing tradition of not holding police officers accountable for their careless actions when dealing with Black people.Read more...

The cover for Leon Thomas’ 1973 album, Full Circle, does not look like what it sounds like, to me at least. The album cover looks like some “diamond in the back, sunroof top...” vibe jams. But Leon Thomas is both a jazz and blue vocalist and this album is rich with both. Thomas was also a percussionist, but more…Read more...

On Tuesday, we reported that golf legend Tiger Woods suffered serious injuries in a gruesome, single-car accident in which his car flipped over several times. And now, after his team released a statement late Tuesday night, the full extent of those injuries has been revealed.

“Bwown Natalie, Mommy!” In the limited repertoire of language I possessed at 2 years old—mostly comprised of pint-sized commands—my mother claims this was the most frequent refrain as she buckled me into the backseat of her Buick back in 1977. Like many children that age, I already knew my colors—even if I couldn’t…Read more...

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An investigation has been launched by the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana after a video released shows one its officers apparently holding a 13-year-old Black child in a chokehold.Read more...

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), estimates that approximately 160 Confederate monuments were taken down over the course of 2020. Come y’all, those are rookie numbers, we need to pump those numbers up.

Playwright. Tony-nominated actor. Director. Advocate. Those are just a few words to describe theater great Douglas Turner Ward, who died on Saturday, February 20 as confirmed to The New York Times by his wife.

Lately, dads have become the video game industry’s pet trope. There are a ton of games that have won a lot of awards about trying, failing, and in very few cases, succeeding at being a dad. But that trend largely excludes Black fathers (with one extremely notable exception), since the video game industry generally…Read more...

Golf legend Tiger Woods was rushed into emergency surgery after he was involved in a single-car accident on Tuesday that left him with multiple injuries, his agent reports.Read more...

One year to the day that 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down by Travis McMichael and his father Greg McMichael while jogging through a neighborhood in Glynn County, Ga., Arbery’s mother has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court seeking $1 million in damages for his death.

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What happens when a hotep goes so far off the deep end that his third eye opens so wide that he blinds himself? Well, that person can no longer speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

The 2021 awards committees may still struggle with recognizing Black excellence (we’re looking at you, Hollywood Foreign Press Association—get some Black members and give Michaela Coel her flowers!), but this year, Vanity Fair does not disappoint. Building upon its increasingly diverse and highly anticipated annual…Read more...

Norman Lear, the TV legend behind The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Sanford & Son, is back with a new project: Clean Slate starring Laverne Cox and comedian George Wallace.

It seemed like a combination of “about a week ago” and forever ago that Bobby Shmurda had us all doing the Shmoney dance in the club to his hit song. Hell, it seems like forever ago that we’ve been in a club (those of us following COVID-19 protocols, anyway).Read more...

If you’re a fan of The Simpsons, you know the laugh.Read more...

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, the former chief of Capitol Police, Steven Sund, stridently denied that the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by white supremacists on Jan. 6 was able to happen because of poor planning by security officials.

Yes, we know it’s only Tuesday, and therefore likely a little early to declare a highlight of the week—but also we’re pretty sure the rare occasion of witnessing two of our favorite women in a conversation about protecting and uplifting Black women is worth the preemptive honor.Read more...

Black women are the most looked over, underappreciated, and undervalued people in this country. This is as true in life as it is in storytelling. Fortunately, DC Comics has made concerted efforts in recent years to address this lack of representation, and with Nubia: Real One, writer L.L McKinney and artist Robyn…Read more...

Texans without heat in the freezing temperatures were still thinking about their senator and his missed vacation when they came up with the brilliant idea to send a little bit of Cancun to his home just to show him how much they care about him.

On Monday, the U.S. marked nearly a year since the ongoing coronavirus pandemic arrived on our shores by reaching a horrid milestone: 500,000 Americans dead from the virus.

A new series from Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Macro will be headed to BET+ soon, The Root has learned.Read more...

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Representation matters. We hear it, and we know it to be true; we also know it to be good for business. But if the racial reckoning of this past year has proven anything—beyond a need for the long-overdue overhaul of any number of American institutions and industries—it’s that even the most well-meaning of those…Read more...

What happens when everyone is an “expert?” How to navigate a world where everyone’s “insights,” no matter how dubious, are cloaked in corporate-speak, strenuously hyped by like-minded cohorts, then injected straight into your brain via a mechanism intentionally designed to push your emotional buttons? And how much do…Read more...

I owe Merrick Garland an apology. When it was announced that Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court (See Mitch McConnell as to why that didn’t happen) would now be President Biden’s pick for attorney general, I said some pretty harsh things about Garland.

Vanessa Bryant has spoken out against Meek Mill’s lyric referencing the late Kobe Bryant, which she believes was “disrespectful.”Read more...

They used to call me “Cheekie.” They still do.Read more...

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If you’re reading this, then it likely won’t come as a surprise to you that the cops will arrest a Black boy for no real reason. Last week in Plano, Texas, a Black teenager was arrested and spent the night in jail. His crime? Walking home from work.

White people love racism so much they’re willing to throw away their freedoms in order to indulge in America’s favorite pastime. Case in point: a Pennsylvania man was arrested for making a series of violent threats against members of Congress and Black people.

Close your eyes and think back to when afterparties were a thing and we could all go out dressed to impress, looking our best and being the flyest of all the guests.Read more...

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: White folks are just different. Private messages show that a Pennsylvania cop was relatively indifferent to the fact that he’s facing federal charges for his role in January’s riot at the Capitol.Read more...

Nzingha Stewart, one of the directors of Hulu’s Emmy Award-winning Little Fire’s Everywhere, will be flexing her directorial skills once again for an upcoming limited series starring and executive produced by Zoe Saldana.Read more...

History books are spilling over with people who have achieved seemingly impossible feats in their lifetime, but they often miss the awesome stories of many Black innovators. One of these people was one of the first Black pilots who also raced cars and designed a cloaking technology for ships. This is the story of…Read more...

Monday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

André Leon Talley has much to be proud of in his storied career: being mentored by legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, blazing a trail as one of the first Black talents on Vogue’s masthead, and being both a bestselling author (of 2020's The Chiffon Trenches) and a bonafide fashion legend, garnering his own…Read more...

Dr. Dre is back in the studio—and it looks like he is intentionally using art to imitate life.Read more...

Whether it’s personal growth, stories of the past, love or jealousy, music has a way of pulling us in. From pop-rock to hip-hop to soul and R&B, this week’s releases explore a variety of emotions, voices and unique points of view on multiple important topics.Read more...

Little Fires Everywhere star Kerry Washington and The Old Guard star Charlize Theron will be facing off in School of Good and Evil, a new feature from Paul Feig, The Root has learned.Read more...

America exports a whole lot of its culture to the rest of the globe—music, movies, ways of dress, slang. This country’s addiction to white supremacy is also known across the world, but the U.S. isn’t the only nation to have embraced the hideous ideology throughout history or—more critically—to be driving it forward…Read more...

Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is hellbent on journalists referencing his “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man” lyric in the article’s lede with every money move he makes, isn’t he?Read more...

What is the difference between OnlyFans and Donald Trump’s tax returns for the last eight years?

More than 50 years after Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York at the hands of members of the Nation of Islam, new information about the role FBI and the NYPD played in the targeting of the Black nationalist leader has emerged.

Max Roach was a famed jazz drummer and composer who has countless albums with various configurations of artists. His career spanned decades and if you are up on jazz at all, you know Max Roach even if you don’t know that you know Max Roach. One thing that stands out to me about him is how socially conscious his albums…Read more...