The Root

The relatives of one of the men who were in the Tuskegee syphilis study say they will take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as they can get it.

In the midst this year’s national protests against the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and numerous other Black Americans, video clips posted by reporters and other people on social media showed police across the country responding to the protests with violence that exhibited much of the brutality…Read more...

What do you get the person who has given so many so much—in many cases, the gift of care, comfort and survival—this year? As 2020 comes to a close, the indisputable heroes in our midst are essential workers, especially those who’ve risked their own health, lives, and constant burnout to care for those with COVID-19.…Read more...

An HP Envy x360 convertible laptop and a TCL 50-inch 4K smart tv lead Saturday’s best deals.

The Federal Drug Administration has authorized a second COVID-19 vaccine, opening the door for more people to receive doses against the virus which brought the country to a halt this year and continues to rack up deaths.

Conservative America would have you believe that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization and that every BLM protest is a stage for violence, looting and assaults on police officers—despite the fact that a strong majority of protests against systemic racism in policing aren’t violent at all. What anti-BLM people…Read more...

In further proof that Trump supporters are the worst kind of trash, a Black family in Texas had their cars set ablaze and “Trump 2020” spray-painted on their garage door.

Can you believe it’s nearly the end of 2020—and amid everything else, in most states in America we’re still asking for permission to wear our hair as we please? While the freedom to wear naturally textured or traditional Black hairstyles may seem purely aesthetic to the willfully ignorant some, it is in fact part of…Read more...

The government is at the risk of being shut down because, in the eleventh hour, some asshole senator from Fuckstick, Fuckville, has decided that it’s more important to him to screw over President-elect Joe Biden than it is to pass this shitty-ass package into law so that Americans can get some relief.

You may have not been named Time’s Person of the Year (unless President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is reading this right now), but you get to shuffle through yet another list of trailers! Also, because I missed you last week, you’re getting an extra helping of trailers this week to carry…Read more...

I believe most people are reasonable.Read more...

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller is following in the president’s petty footsteps as he’s ordered a “holiday pause” on briefings with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team because the goal of this administration must be to annoy the fuck out everyone.

Hey nieces and nephews!Read more...

As the historic campaign to distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the country kicked off this week, many lawmakers, public health experts, and newsrooms across the country have paid special attention to Black Americans’ distrust in a coronavirus vaccine.Read more...

2020 is almost over. Soon, we’ll be embarking on a new year. Now that’s change we can believe in.Read more...

Of all the adjectives we’d use to describe 2020, “good” wouldn’t exactly top the list. But as this most eventful year comes to a close, hosting literary icon and activist Nikki Giovanni on our new podcast, The Root Presents: It’s Lit! will undoubtedly be one of its high points. Ironically, to hear the legendary poet…Read more...

You may have been pleasantly surprised to see Gabrielle Union urging you to make it a #BuyBlack Friday on Facebook Live this year, but like her now-decades-long career in the industry (“I’m almost 50 and [they] treat me like an ingenue,” she jokes), don’t call it a comeback—or a trend. She’s been about that #BuyBlack…Read more...

One would think that seven years of development time would result in one of the most polished games ever, but, uh, nah. The game is so broken on console that Sony has taken the unprecedented step of completely removing it from the PlayStation Store.Read more...

Since March, the coronavirus has unleashed all types of unbridled hell on both professional and collegiate sports. But of all the postponements, outbreaks, and whatever other madness that coaches have faced during this unprecedented time, Houston Cougars basketball coach Kelvin Sampson has been got slapped with a…Read more...

Has anything in the world of politics been more stressful than the 2020 election season? If the reality TV drama that was the presidential race wasn’t enough, the Georgia Senate runoff elections are shaping up to be a battle between folks who just want to cast their ballots and folks who seem hellbent on making voting…Read more...

Once upon a time, when NBA players were still allowed to play defense and the New York Knicks were still a professional basketball team, the Minnesota Timberwolves did a very stupid thing.

Someone get the Psychic Friends Network on the phone and ask them if they saw this coming! Specifically, asking them if they saw it going down this way!Read more...

My homeboy Lavelle and I had this thing we did when a kid wanted to fight me and I didn’t want to fight. I would act like I was taking off my shirt and Lavelle knew that was his cue to jump in and act like he was breaking it up. I was rail-thin growing up. I reached my full man height (6 foot, 2 inches) as a teen but…Read more...

Growing up, I knew the minute the Christmas tree was dragged into the house that Christmas songs would soon follow. And Christmas originals sung by Black artists are more than just fun yuletide ditties. They are immersive musical experiences that make it close to impossible to not get up and dance.

True confession time: I am a veteran “Maxxinista.” If you don’t know what that is, you obviously never had the unique privilege of growing up near a T.J. Maxx—it was even my first part-time job! A decade later, I spent years modeling for the brand, so suffice to say, the Maxx and I—and its equally well-priced sister…Read more...

As the nation waits for congressional lawmakers to reach a resolution on a second stimulus bill—nine months after the coronavirus pandemic began disrupting the lives of Americans around the country—a group of Black female House Democrats is challenging President-elect Joe Biden to offer more substantial relief to…Read more...

In the beginning, God took six days to create the Earth, all of the animals and humans. Adam and Eve, the original Michelle and Barack, were living the life, running around butt-naked until Lucifer, an incredibly talented choir director, ruined everything by convincing Eve to serve Adam a tainted fruit salad. That’s…Read more...

A Black man in Louisiana who was serving a life sentence over two bags of weed worth only $20 has finally been freed from prison after 12 years.

Shaft and The Banker star Samuel L. Jackson is set to star in a new limited series for Apple+ TV, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. The six-episode limited series is based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Walter Mosley, with Mosley tapped to write the screen adaptation as well executive produce…Read more...

If there’s one gift the work-from-home set would likely love to receive this season, it’s boundaries. While there are definite benefits to eschewing the commute and daily lunch budget for comfortable pants (or none at all) and working from bed (if you insist), there are also significant downsides as the lines between…Read more...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law on Tuesday that would ban hate symbols from being sold on state property.Read more...

Listen: Stories about Black men spending years and even decades behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit are never stories you want to hear. But there are certain stories where the degree of racism, injustice and cruel behavior on the part of law enforcement and the criminal justice system is so inconceivably…Read more...

An independent autopsy has revealed that a Black man who was killed by a Texas police officer was shot in the back.Read more...

“Say what, now?” has been the typical (if not most explicit) response to an announcement made this week that Jenna Bush Hager, former first daughter-turned-Today with Hoda and Jenna co-host, would be hosting “A Celebration of Toni Morrison” on the morning show December 21, 2020.Read more...

On the same day that the NBA Foundation named Greg Taylor its first-ever executive director, it also made another major announcement as part of its mission to advance economic empowerment within the Black community.Read more...

It sounds like something from a nightmare, but it’s what 35-year-old Lionel Womack is alleging he experienced in real life—a cop in Kansas deliberately driving a patrol truck over his body while chasing him through an open field.

If there was ever a collection that made me want to hop in my whip and head to the nearest club or poppin’ post-pandemic function simply to stunt in my ‘fit, it’s this latest one from Lil’ Kim and PrettyLittleThing.

Man...I really hate wypipo apologies.Read more...

Walter Forbes, a 63-year-old Black man in Michigan, is now free to spend the holidays with his family for the first time in over 37 years.

For hoop heads, March 11 is a day that will live on in infamy.Read more...

The National Football League says it doesn’t expect to get—and will not ask for—preferential treatment when it comes to taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

In an attempt to ensure Americans (read anti-vaxers and Black folks) that the coronavirus vaccine is safe, Vice President and sexless robot Mike Pence will publicly get the shot Friday. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to get the vaccine as early as next week.

It’s that time of year again!Read more...

Throughout the course of the past year, we’ve seen the profiles of HBCUs continue to escalate, as everyone from Chris Paul to Pharrell Williams (to even Peyton Manning) has made it their mission to support the next generation of Black royalty. And ever eager to put on for the culture and keep a spotlight on…Read more...

“I was coughing up blood for two days this week,” M said. “I have not seen a doctor. I have been telling sick call but they just walk past me.” M, held at the District of Columbia jail, was describing his life behind bars as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

Gregory Alan Bush—the white man who walked into a Louisville, Ky., area Kroger supermarket in 2018 and fatally shot two elderly Black people—pleaded guilty to murder on Tuesday and will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bush—who is reportedly schizophrenic and was unmedicated at…Read more...

Actor and Let’s Make a Deal Host Wayne Brady is set to star in a new hybrid comedy currently in development for CBS.

A coroner’s court in the United Kingdom has ruled that air pollution was a cause of death in the case of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, an asthmatic 9-year-old girl who lived in southeast London and died in 2013.

Whenever I think of herd immunity, I think of the monkey house at the zoo.

The “Hollywood Reckoning” may have been used as a buzz phrase this year, but it is more than just abstract. It involves the very real lives of Black actors and crew members who have endured (often silently, in order to survive financially) countless microaggressions, full-out racism and other toxic incidents at work.Read more...