The Root

If you’ve been keeping up with our ongoing coverage so far, you may know that The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been releasing regular panel sessions called Academy Dialogues as part of its equity and inclusion initiative Academy Aperture 2025.Read more...

In the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, America underwent a short-lived racial reckoning in which white people pretended to give a shit about the Black plight, and Black folks failed miserably to fully capitalize off of it.Read more...

Jasmyn Lawson has done a lot during these socially-distant times, including successfully announcing an incredible lineup of our favorite shows on Netflix that’ll keep us entertained well into winter.Read more...

I arrived home from external commitments just over a week ago to an extraordinary homecoming gift. It took the form of a movement—sometimes angry, sometimes entrancing, poignant, sometimes strident, certainly robust in expectations but always moving, visionary and organized. That movement demanded an end to…Read more...

In honor of the late Kobe Bryant, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has displayed the jersey he wore during the 2008 NBA Finals.Read more...

A bonafide star since she first appeared on the hit ABC sitcom Black-ish at the age of 10, watching Marsai Martin come into her own as become its own joy.Read more...

On Monday, Compton Mayor Aja Brown announced the upcoming launch of a pilot program that will give regular, free payments to 800 of its lowest-income residents.Read more...

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is really out here trying to trump Trump’s re-Trump-ulousness...Trump-diculousness...Read more...

In his first interview since barging into the home of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in March, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly of the Louisville Metro Police Department said he would certainly do things differently if he were able to redo that night.Read more...

On Tuesday, a Miami, Fla., police officer was photographed wearing a pro-Trump face mask while voting at the city’s Government Center. Most states restrict campaigning for any candidate within a certain distance from a polling place, and many states extend those restrictions to the wearing of any clothing, buttons or…Read more...

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Thursday nights have been always been the time for peak drama, thanks to Shonda Rhimes’ TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) primetime TV event featuring the likes of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. The characters in her stories typically go through some kind of dramatized conflict (or countless…Read more...

Because the Trump administration was created to show us exactly what the devil looks like, in 2018 they issued a “zero-tolerance” border-crossing policy that separated migrant children at the southern U.S. border from their parents and enslaved them in cages. Then it turned out that the administration had been…Read more...

On Tuesday, Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar went on Twitch to stream the incredibly popular game, Among Us.

President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is continuing his lifelong reputation of being dried-up elephant hawk-spit after he was caught on film reaching into his pants and touching his genitals while lying on a bed with a woman he believed was a journalist but was actually an actor in Borat’s new movie, Borat…Read more...

In the lexicon of “boy-meets-girl” romances, there is one love rarely explored: our love of shoes (foot fetishes notwithstanding). We also love nothing more than a Black fashion moment, so the long-awaited release of the collaboration between two of our favorite labels—Brother Vellies and Pyer Moss—which walked the…Read more...

In July, the team formerly known as the Washington Racial Slurs bid adieu to their racist-ass name after 87 years.Read more...

So Inside Out is a Pixar movie about a kid named Riley and mostly about the intersecting and competing emotions inside of her that exist like a control center in her brain and how all emotions—even the ones like sadness that we’d rather not have—have a symbiotic relationship. It was released in 2015 but I watched it…Read more...

What would 2020 be without a bizarre introspective film about a big-ass purple dinosaur?!Read more...

When Mary J. Blige’s aunt died of breast cancer, the news was both shocking and devastating.

Imagine an America where you can call the authorities on a Karen for calling the authorities on you just for existing while Black. San Francisco, Calif., may very well be on its way to that reality—or at least one where Karens and their Ken counterparts will be held accountable for their racism.Read more...

Despite a 24-hour curfew imposed by the government, hundreds of young Nigerians gathered in Lagos Tuesday afternoon to continue protesting against police violence in the country. As they had been doing for weeks, they waved Nigerian flags, danced to Afrobeats and carried signs with the slogan “#EndSARSNow.”Read more...

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) has been battling South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) for who will get to bronze the president’s testicles and keep them in their suit jacket pocket, closest to their heart. While no one will beat Graham’s commitment and penchant for punishment, it looks like Gaetz didn’t walk away…Read more...

Jerry Jones doesn’t get it.Read more...

Valerie Jarrett was one of the most trusted advisers in President Obama’s administration, and in the years since, has lent her expertise as a board member of Ariel Investments, Lyft, the Kennedy Center, Time’s Up, and more, in addition to being Chair of the Board of When We All Vote, co-Chair of the United State of…Read more...

It’s autumn, which not only means the leaves are turning beautiful colors, but it’s the season swarms of HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) alumni typically descend upon their alma maters for homecoming shenanigans. Well, not in 2020. Due to the global pandemic, the annual event that most look forward…Read more...

On Tuesday, November 3, 2020, America will choose the next president of the United States.Read more...

The Animal Crossing Switch console and KYOKU knife block lead Wednesday’s best deals.

With things happening so fast in the world around us, the news cycle feels like a whirlwind moving from story to story overnight. Even reports as disturbing as allegations of mass hysterectomies in ICE detention camps disappeared from the national conversation as quickly as they came—though it could be argued that…Read more...

Amy Coney Barrett is a right-wing extremist.Read more...

If you don’t know who Heidi N Closet, Jaida Essence Hall, and Shea Couleé are, you are sadly missing out on “Black queer excellence,” in the words of entertainment journalist Tre’vell Anderson.Read more...

When we vote, it may seem like we are voting for a candidate, but that is not entirely accurate.

A Marine general has been removed from his post after using the N-word during a training session.Read more...

A public high school in Ohio has been giving students extra credit for watching videos from PragerU, an organization that features such intellectual titans as *checks notes* Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens.Read more...

Charges have been dropped against a Black man who was arrested in Iowa City, Iowa, last year after he was stopped by a police officer for jaywalking. Based on police body camera footage, a federal judge decided that what the arresting officer purported to be a legitimate stop was really a clear case of racial…Read more...

A poll worker in Memphis was fired after refusing to allow people wearing “Black Lives Matter” shirts to vote.Read more...

After years of twists and turns, acclaimed actor Wendell Pierce, star of The Wire and Treme announced that he will be playing legendary blues musician BB King in an upcoming feature film entitled, The Thrill Is On.Read more...

A Kentucky judge has sided with an anonymous grand juror, ruling that members of the grand jury can speak freely about proceedings in the Breonna Taylor case because it ultimately serves “the interest of all citizens to have confidence in the integrity of the justice system.”Read more...

After giving fans a glimpse of his playmaking ability on Sunday—and I mean a glimpse considering he played all of like two minutes—the Miami Dolphins have pushed the eject button on journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick and rookie Tua Tagovailoa will be their quarterback moving forward, according to ESPN.

Should Kamala Devi Harris be elected vice president in two weeks, she will have achieved several simultaneous “firsts,” all of which will be especially significant to wide swaths of women, women of color, immigrant families, DREAMers and more. The ballots may not yet be counted (praying for their safe return), but the…Read more...

Eric Trump…Read more...

We may not be getting our hair did as often in 2020 due to social distancing protocols, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t talk hair! Just in time for its upcoming release, we talked with the cast and crew of Hulu’s Bad Hair.Read more...

They were the breakout star of FX’s much-beloved (and now, much-missed) Pose, and now Indya Moore is breaking even more ground, creating a double-vision on the covers of both Vogue India and Vogue Spain this November. As is now to be expected by an actor who plays a model onscreen and off, the fashion spreads are…Read more...

After months of Black current and former students at Virginia Military Institute speaking up about rampant racism at the institution, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered an investigation into the school’s culture.Read more...

In September, Michael Jordan unveiled his plans to become NASCAR’s first Black principal owner in nearly 50 years by forming a Cup Series team with three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and in the time since, other than convincing Bubba Wallace to dip out on Richard Petty Motorsports and drive for him instead,…Read more...

Before polling began, America would have assumed that Eric Trump was the dumbest Trump. But a new poll from “Fuck these kids” has found that Tiffany Trump is surging in Southern states and places where white people wear shorts all year round despite the weather.

It was a month ago, I think. Maybe two. Maybe last week. Time is a flat circle. I was on a Zoom call with either the people I don’t need to actually see in order to effectively communicate with them—which is most people. Like eight billion people. Or the people I might actually need to see while I’m talking to…Read more...

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie fans, it’s been a long seven years since Americanah, her last novel, and winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. She’s been active on Instagram and it’s always a joy to revisit her catalog of beautiful writing—Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing…Read more...

After ridding themselves of Jason Garrett, hiring Mike McCarthy and gifting Dak Prescott with a shiny new toy in world-beater CeeDee Lamb, expectations were high in Cowboys country. But after Dak went down with a gruesome ankle injury in Week 5, reality is settling in and the Cowboys’ new normal is brimming with…Read more...