The Root

On September 16, 2016, Dr. Tiffany Crutcher suffered an unspeakable loss that would forever change not only the course of her life but that of an entire city.

When President Joe Biden speaks at Tuesday’s ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the terrorist attack known as the Tulsa Race Massacre (Because, calling it a “Black massacre” is too much), he will take the opportunity to address inequality, systemic racism and nonexistent racial justice.Read more...

Ellie Kemper and her publicist are the involuntary stars of Twitter this week!Read more...

It must be fun to troll Republicans. I mean, they are ripe for it. They are at least a few crayons short of a 64 box of Crayolas. They are self-righteous and loud and shamelessly racist AF.

Tennis giant Naomi Osaka has dropped out of the French Open after clashing with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and one day after officials threatened to expel her from the upcoming Grand Slam tournament all over her refusal to show up for press conferences after her matches. Listen: Media is important, and it’s…Read more...

Let’s be very real about one thing: For all of their claims that liberals are easily offended “snowflakes,” white conservatives are undoubtedly the most overly sensitive, perpetually triggered, crying-over-nothing-est people in the world.Read more...

Memorial Day is many things: a national holiday of remembrance; a date that this year coincides with a much-needed remembrance of a national tragedy; the unofficial start of summer; and the so-called official day we can all start wearing white again—well, at least until Labor Day. (The latter being an arbitrary and…Read more...

On Sunday, The Root reported that the GOPropagandist-controlled Texas Senate approved what is very clearly a voter suppression bill that was negotiated behind closed doors, pushed “earlier than usual” and one that arbitrarily makes it more difficult to vote. Well, on Sunday night, state Senate Democrats banded…Read more...

The first time most (white) Americans likely heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre was when HBO’s Watchmen opened its first episode—aired on October 20, 2019—with the devastating reenactment of the death and destruction that took place on May 31-June 1 in Greenwood, the Black neighborhood known as “Black Wall Street.”

White supremacists represent America’s greatest terrorism threat. The FBI has said it. The Department of Homeland Security has said it repeatedly. White conservative extremists keep on proving it. This is why government officials are constantly having to warn us that groups of the neo-Nazi variety might attack…Read more...

Republicans really are the worst.Read more...

Nicole Poole Franklin, the white supremacist from Des Moines, Iowa, who on Dec. 9, 2019, hit a Black 12-year-old boy with her SUV and, on the same day, ran over a 14-year-old girl and admitted she did it because she thought the girl “was a Mexican,” has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty in…Read more...

So...Read more...

Many racial stereotypes come from a bit of truth. For example, a lot of Black people are loud—which is to say, we tend to have a fair amount of bass in our voices compared to our white counterparts and that shit tends to carry.Read more...

For Black America, the demand for reparations is always an uphill battle. Even when lawmakers and other elected officials appear to be for reparations, it often seems like they’re only half-in. For example, there’s never any proposed legislation that green lights actual monetary compensation for descendants of…Read more...

I really don’t fuck with Texas politicians, y’all. These motherfuckers really never miss an opportunity to be dumb, cruel, or just flat-out trash. A group of prisoners in the state filed a lawsuit last year to have hand sanitizer, soap, and proper social distancing measures implemented in prisons to help combat the…Read more...

Clarence Green was driving in his car on New Year’s Day last year when he was pulled over by a police officer in Baton Rouge, La. The ensuing traffic stop was anything but routine as the officer proceeded to publicly strip search Green and his 16-year-old brother. Over a year later, the city of Baton Rouge has reached…Read more...

Happy Friday, folks! I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely ready to spend the holiday weekend laying on the couch, watching All Elite Wrestling’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view, and of course, playing some good-ass games.

Correction: 5/29/2021, 2:21 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this blog noted that Okoye will be getting her own original series, but upon clarification of the below blurb, it appears an Okoye-led series has not yet been confirmed. What has been confirmed via the below quoted section is Gurira’s character will be…Read more...

For the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the New York Times has released an interactive experience, What the Tulsa Massacre Destroyed, that takes viewers through the streets of a digitally created and historically accurate Greenwood neighborhood, demonstrating the destruction the massacre created.…Read more...

More than a dozen North Carolina amusement park employees walked off the job earlier this week after they said their concerns regarding an allegedly racist AF park manager were ignored. Now, park officials are denying that they received the complaints and are criticizing the walkout because—*checks notes*—the park was…Read more...

The state of Illinois is about an inch away from adopting a new law that would prohibit schools from discriminating against Black hair. The bill is currently on its way back to the state Senate so that lawmakers can vote on an amendment to name it for the Black 4-year-old who prompted its proposal after he was sent…Read more...

When he’s not out here starring in Oscar award-winning films, Joey Bada$$ is juggling a thriving music career, the demands of fatherhood, and plenty of other opportunities as he continues to ascend. As such, he’s a prime candidate for Spotify’s podcast Best Advice, which features both up-and-coming artists and legacy…Read more...

Answering emails, tweets and DMs from pissed-off readers can take a huge toll on a person’s psyche, but what about me? Who’s there for me when I need a response? Who can I run to, to fill this empty space with laughter? Who can I run to, when I need love?Read more...

A few months ago, I was a guest on a podcast that I really enjoy called the 80z Babies Podcast. The show—hosted by Yinka Diz and Outlaw—focuses largely on 90s and 00s era hip-hop and breaks down classic hip-hop albums, and attempts to make good albums into classics (like one of their latest episodes, Jay-Z’s Vol.…Read more...

Amid a year with very few things to celebrate, one of its most celebrated books was Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. To date, the short story collection has been a 2020 National Book Award finalist, won the 2020 Story Prize, a 2020 L.A. Times Book Prize for first fiction, and the 2021 Pen Faulkner…Read more...

Each week, Into America, hosted by MSNBC correspondent Trymaine Lee, examines what it means to be Black in America—as told by the people who have the most at stake.Read more...

Go ahead and picture Trevante Rhodes working on Mike Tyson’s famous lisp with a dialect coach because the actor has been cast as the legendary professional boxer for a new Hulu series.Read more...

Vice President Kamala Harris is going to have to get used to being a lot of firsts.

If I busted my ass all season to earn the second-best record in the league, and in turn, the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference NBA Playoffs, only to face the reigning champs—who are technically the No. 7 seed, but not really—in the opening round, I’d probably be pissed, too.Read more...

Nearly eight years ago, she co-founded the organization named for arguably the largest modern civil rights movement the nation and world have ever seen. Now, Patrisse Cullors is stepping down from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation to focus on other aspects of the career and platform she has built for…Read more...

The gunman who shot and killed nine Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) co-workers before killing himself was under investigation for reportedly making racist remarks to coworkers.

The Pennsylvania Parole Board has denied Bill Cosby’s parole, Deadline confirmed on Thursday. Cosby has been incarcerated at Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at SCI Phoenix located in Collegeville for nearly three years after being convicted for drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University…Read more...

Psychotherapist Chamin Ajjan knows that folks are going through so much right now—mentally, emotionally and physically.Read more...

Another day, another racist-ass teacher trying it. Today’s fuckery takes us to Ralston, Neb., where a high school science teacher used a picture of a Black student without his consent on a test and labeled him an “animal.”

If you’ve been hungry for more work from Roxane Gay, you are soon to be sated. Via a press release provided to The Root, publisher Grove Atlantic has entered into a partnership with the bestselling author of Hunger, Bad Feminist, Difficult Women and other incredible works (as well as meriting her own MasterClass) to…Read more...

The mother of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot over six years ago by Cleveland police, is fighting to make sure that the police officer responsible for the shooting doesn’t get his job back on the police force.

Weeks before George Floyd was murdered by ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, another Black man in Tacoma, Wash., died in police custody shortly after telling the officers who were restraining him, “I can’t breathe.” That man was 33-year-old Manuel Ellis, and on Thursday, two of the police officers involved…Read more...

Whatever happened to just taking the L? Whether it be the former president and his acolytes or the Central Park Karen, there’s an alarming lack of folks going, “you know what, that’s on me, I fucked up.” One would hope a year was enough time for Amy Cooper to realize why she was wrong, why she faced the consequences…Read more...

I’m starting to think that anonymous racists choose to be anonymous while doing their dirty work because they’re embarrassed by their lack of white supremacist creativity.Read more...

Washing clothes is my favorite chore. I don’t know exactly when this started, but since I was younger, I’ve always enjoyed the process of washing, drying and folding my clothes. I always felt like if I at least had clean clothes, I could go anywhere and do anything. It’s a feeling that’s stayed with me through today.

The BET Awards, which recently revealed that it would be holding its 2021 ceremony live at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, has just announced their nominees for this year.Read more...

KRS-One taught me that “overseers” said fast enough and over a long period of time sound a lot like “officers” in his seminal text, “Sound of da Police,” so it isn’t shocking to me that cops do corrupt things.

This year, it’ll be 100 years since the extremely grotesque act of domestic terrorism known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred on May 31 and June 1, 1921.

Bill Traylor’s extraordinary life story is American history. The self-taught artist began his unique drawings in his 80s and produced over 1,200 works. His drawings depicted memories from the plantation and the Black Southern experience throughout the 20th century.Read more...

You know, I think I’ve told the story of how Very Smart Brothas came to be a million times at this point. In fact, Damon and I have done it so much I’m fairly certain I know exactly what he’s going to say before he says it. But what neither of us has spent a ton of time talking about, individually and as a collective…Read more...

It’s an undeniable fact that the last year and a half has been a time filled with tremendous loss on multiple fronts.Read more...

John Davis, known as one of the true voices behind once-popular R&B group Milli Vanilli, has died at the age of 66 due to complications from the coronavirus, Variety reports. His daughter Jasmin confirmed the news via a Facebook post on May 24.Read more...

This week, a Massachusetts elementary school teacher was fired after he was exposed as an unabashed white supremacist writer who routinely published his work on white nationalist websites under multiple pseudonyms.Read more...