The Root

The fatal shooting of beloved actor Thomas Jefferson Byrd shocked fans and peers alike when it was announced earlier this month.Read more...

The Nigerian military has issued a warning to the public amid weeks of anti-police brutality protests, calling on “subversive elements and troublemakers to desist.” While protesters have actually been the target of violence this week as they continue demonstrations against the country’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad…Read more...

Do you remember this guy? If you’re my age (41) or older, you probably do. I’m sure Ice Cube does, because he’s old as fuck! If you don’t, his name is Ellis and he’s from a movie called Die Hard.Read more...

There is the multiverse, and then, there are the multi-versed; award-winning poet, playwright, author, editor, and artist Claudia Rankine, is undoubtedly one of the latter. With seven books, several plays, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States…Read more...

President Trump knows how to make good TV.

Despite President COVID-45's insistence that the coronavirus is “disappearing,” this pandemic is still very much alive—as evidenced by the fact that 21 states have just set record weekly averages for new cases this week.Read more...

Donald Trump has made one thing clear: he doesn’t care about democracy or protecting your right to vote.

After one of the biggest implosions in NBA history, in which the Los Angeles Temecula Clippers (the franchise has since relocated to Temecula after the team was ran out of town by rioters bearing torches and pitchforks) somehow blew a 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference Semifinals with one of the most loaded…Read more...

President Trump is taking down everyone on his way (hopefully) out of the White House. Those aligned with him or noticeably silent (looking at you, Republican Party) have proven themselves complicit in all of the fuckery coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Ava DuVernay is back in the director’s chair once again, this time for a feature film adaptation based on Isabel Wilkerson’s New York Times bestseller, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.Read more...

I’ve always believed that the single Drakiest Drake song is “Shot For Me.” It’s petty, it’s passive-aggressive, and it’s actually pretty damn mean and nasty, but its meanness and nastiness are obscured by Drake’s falsetto-ey intonation.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council took a notable step towards police reform by advancing a proposal that would create a crisis response team for non-violent 911 calls.Read more...

All of these Black celebrities would do well to understand how unlikely it is that a sitting president is going to meet with entertainers on major policy decisions. Now, our current president and his administration will meet with you. He’s so desperate for Black friends that he won’t pass on the opportunity to use you…Read more...

Every other month, I go to the Books for International Goodwill sale in Annapolis, Md. It starts at 8 am and I’m an early riser anyway, so I drive the 40 minutes from southeast Washington, DC on a virtually trafficless highway to get there when the only other people are a few solo shoppers and the chipper tribe of…Read more...

Our forever president until further notice confirmed that the president of white supremacy, Donald Trump, led the racist “birther” movement in 2011 for masturbatory purposes, which is, he got off on the attention it gave him.

Dr. Ariana A. Curtis thinks that the world must know that Blackness exists within Latinidad.Read more...

Pandemic or not, Taraji P. Henson continues to keep her foot on the gas.

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Glendale, where less than 2 percent of residents identify as Black, has become the first California city–and the third in the nation—to publicly apologize for its racist history, with the city council unanimously passing a resolution this week addressing its history as a “sundown town,” a term applied to places that…Read more...

It’s October, right? Frankly, we’re not entirely sure, at this point; the days are shorter, the darkness both literally and figuratively encroaching, and it’s getting colder—in fact, it’s starting to feel eerily like it did when we first started lockdown—maybe we’re stuck in a time loop?Read more...

Not today, Satan.

Aisha Nyandoro was midway through her morning routine when she first saw the news.Read more...

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It’s time for yet another (virtual) awards show! This time, it’s the Billboard Music Awards (BBMAs)!Read more...

In news that is absolutely shocking to no one, a study has found that Black cops are more likely to be disciplined than white cops.

So...

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Multiple bags of undelivered mail were found at postal worker Sean Troesch’s Pennsylvania home by special agents with the U.S Postal Service.Read more...

Jesus was just a metaphor.Read more...

For many men and women, loving your body is no small challenge. But if you’re fat and have the audacity to love and be confident in your body, even the compliments are barbed.Read more...

The Denver Broncos are cursed.Read more...

Playstation is sus, y’all. I mean, I don’t know about you, but an update that records your party chat is pretty sus to me.Read more...

Regina THEE King is continuing to reign over the Hollywood kingdom with the announcement of her new project!Read more...

Since it became clear that the president was losing in the polling and that a global pandemic was pushing more and more folks towards mail-in voting, President Trump and his merry band of Trumpesticles have consistently claimed that mail-in voting is open to massive fraud.

With days left before he was set to graduate from high school, Devin Freelon and his friends decided to visit Sterling State Park in Michigan, a recreational park on the lip of Lake Erie, just an hour away from Detroit. They were playing music in the parking lot when a white man they had never met before began…Read more...

Amy Cooper—the Becky of all Karens whose hit single “I’m Not a Gentrifier, I Just Shoo Away the Blacks a Lot,” who went viral earlier this year when she called the police on Black bird watcher Christian Cooper—made two separate 911 calls on that fateful day in New York City’s Central Park, according to prosecutors.Read more...

Los Angeles Lakers forward Jared Dudley will never make an All-Star game in his life, but if we’re picking an All-Star squad of the best personalities in the entire league, he’s absolutely a lottery pick.Read more...

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to halt the 2020 census count ahead of schedule. While the order technically only pauses the count while a federal appeals court decides whether or not the count should be stopped early, experts say the ruling effectively shuts down the count…Read more...

Emmy-Award winner and 2020 The Root 100 honoree Yahya Abdul-Mateen II certainly steals my attention for superficial reasons, but his pure talent cannot be denied in his incredible portrayal of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale in Netflix’s upcoming sociopolitical flick, The Trial of the Chicago 7.Read more...

From NASCAR to social media and beyond, Black folks have once again proven to be the nation’s ultimate game changers and cultural icons. And 2020’s The Root 100 list is a perfect reflection of how we influence and shape American society for the better.Read more...

Jasmyn Lawson is Black Twitter’s best friend.Read more...

There is nothing simple—or easy—about divorce.Read more...

President Trump was never going to show his taxes.

The Root staff knows all about the struggle that is finding the right stock photo as the main art for a news story. You enter a search term like, “Black man contemplating imploding during a long-term lockdown” and you can’t find shit because the library is congested with white folks contemplating imploding during a…Read more...

A mayor, a legal titan and Hollywood royalty—Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, NAACP Legal Defense Fund president and director-counsel Sherrilyn Ifill, and Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Regina King are just three of the incredible women named Glamour magazine’s 2020 Women of the Year, each honored…Read more...

When a group of racist agitators crashed Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes’ virtual listening session on Monday, the congresswoman’s first instinct was to calmly press on, then check on everyone else and make sure they were OK.Read more...

President COVID-45, the same man who refused to host a Zoom debate, will now take part in a NBC News town hall event in Miami on the same day and same time as Joe Biden is set to have his town hall.

It’s no secret that Latinidad has a fraught relationship with Blackness.Read more...

It seems like just yesterday that Ms. Tina Knowles Lawson was giving us details on how she’d been staying productive and politically active during this prolonged pandemic. That’s because it was—and if you didn’t get the very pointed message she gave us on Big Beauty Tuesday, it was simple: Vote.Read more...

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