The Root

The clear victor on election night was neither President Donald Trump nor Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden—it was drugs.Read more...

Like many Americans, I woke up with a feeling that can only be described as “The fuck are you talking about it’s close?! Nigga, these last four years and it’s close?!” Today is poised to be one of the most maddening, anxiety-inducing days in recent memory; which is saying something in a year that has included…Read more...

The last 24 hours have been emotionally draining for all of us, but thankfully Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has blessed us all with a little bit of good news to lift our spirits.Read more...

If you extract yourself from your body and the present and view America as a single, 401-year-long continuum, the only aspect of our nation that has remained static through our existence is white supremacy. It is both the threading fabric connecting 1619 to 1776 to 1863 to 1956 to 2016 and the amniotic fluid greasing…Read more...

It’s no secret that the 2020 election has been and continues to be stressful AF. It’s been particularly stressful for progressives whose attitudes appear to range from uncomfortable uncertainty to complete doom and gloom amid election results already reported that make it clear that, regardless of who wins the…Read more...

For those of you who were expecting to tell Kanye West, “Congratulations, President-Elect Kanye West”...well, you can’t tell him nothin’. We may not know yet who our next president is—but it certainly isn’t Kanye.Read more...

Michigan’s secretary of state announced that final results won’t be ready until Wednesday. Philadelphia has 300,000 mail-in ballots to count. Milwaukee isn’t reporting until later this morning.

The commissioner for the Kentucky State police has resigned after it was revealed that a training program used by the force included quotes from Adolf Hitler and Gen. Robert E. Lee.Read more...

Today marks the final day of voting in this year’s presidential election, considered by many to be the most consequential of our lifetimes. But no matter what result (or lack thereof) we wake up to on Wednesday, some of the ramifications of President Donald Trump’s actions will last well past the next presidential…Read more...

It’s been a long four years, y’all. Since Election Day 2016, we’ve lived in what can only be called a surreality; one which has increasingly made many of us feel not only wildly out of control of our democracy (which already existed on a highly relative scale) but our own destinies. With hours—or days, or weeks—to go…Read more...

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with killing two people during a protest in Kenosha, Wisc., has been placed on a $2 million bond after being deemed a flight risk.Read more...

For convicted felons in Florida, one of their biggest hurdles in exercising their right to vote is exorbitant court fees and fines that prevent them from being eligible to do so. But thanks to LeBron James, Michael Jordan and other celebrities who have partnered with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, nearly…Read more...

Damn Drake, back at it again, I see. The Toronto-raised rapper has officially earned his 21st No.1 hit on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop song charts, thanks to his latest track, “Laugh Now, Cry Later” featuring rapper Lil Durk.

North Carolina—a key battleground state in the 2020 election—will keep four polling places open longer after a Tuesday vote by the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The board’s decision was made because the four polling sites opened late, and the extension means that reporting on statewide election results will…Read more...

You know how Disneyworld has different parks such as EPCOT and Magic Kingdom? Well, Shondaland has a new “park” and it’s called Bridgerton.Read more...

The late stages of the election have been a dark, dark comedy of Republican officials trying to steal the election and the—admittedly occasional—federal court going “Um, the fuck are you doing?” In the latest, and hopefully final act of this play, a federal court ordered the United States Postal Service to sweep its…Read more...

23-year-old Holden Matthews—the black metal-loving son of a St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, sheriff’s deputy who wasn’t officially named a white supremacist despite having pleaded guilty to burning down three Black churches in 2019—was sentenced Monday to 25 years in federal prison for his crimes, according to the…Read more...

Modern-day voter suppression takes many forms: Disproportionately long lines at precincts in majority-Black neighborhoods, biased voter ID laws, and requiring the formerly incarcerated to pay off all their fines before voting, to name just a few. Political disinformation campaigns, in which individuals and groups…Read more...

Somebody cue the music and dust off the jumping broom!Read more...

It’s Election Day!

Keith Olbermann is supposed to be “one of the good ones.”Read more...

Apparently, “POC” stands for “professor of color.”

This is the day the overlord has made, let us cringe and be anxious in it.Read more...

Welcome to the season finale of America!Read more...

If you thought Halloween was hit hard by the now-interminable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, brace yourselves for the rest of the upcoming holidays. With large gatherings off the table and small gatherings now equally implicated in the spread of the novel coronavirus, our Thanksgiving plans are going look…Read more...

Florida and Georgia—two crucial battleground states in the 2020 election—are rejecting mailed-in ballots from voters of color at substantially higher rates than those from white voters, according to a recent analysis by NBC News and the Democratic political data firm TargetSmart.Read more...

If there’s one thing you can expect from Spotify’s Jemele Hill Is Unbothered, it’s a good-ass interview. Since its debut in 2019, she’s chatted with everyone from Spike Lee to Uncle Luke, treating her listeners to entertaining stories and enlightening conversations sprinkled with her signature charisma and wit.Read more...

On Monday, The Root reported that a group of Republicans hellbent on ending drive-thru voting in Harris County—a largely Democratic county that includes Houston—petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to throw out nearly 127,000 drive-thru votes that had already been cast. That request was rejected because, while the Texas…Read more...

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that no one—and I mean absolutely no one—is exempt from its crazy, not even Grammy-award winning artist Erykah Badu. And that’s exactly why she’s teamed up with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden for the inaugural episode of its new series, The Message.

Have y’all been feenin’ for Verzuz ever since it ended? As Netflix’s Strong Black Lead editorial and brand manager and 2020 The Root 100 honoree Jasmyn Lawson told us, “I’ve loved every moment that we, as a community, have been able to come together virtually, especially during moments like Verzuz.”Read more...

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Election Day is finally here, after a historic early voting period that has seen record numbers of voters turning up across the country to make their voices heard at the ballot box. But although we are many decades removed from the Jim Crow laws that formally barred Black voters from voting, ghosts of the past will be…Read more...

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It’s election day in the U.S., with millions of Americans heading to the polls to vote for either Donald Trump, a hate-filled turd who’s determined to dismantle democracy, or his Democratic challenger Joe Biden. And if you’re wondering how to watch the first day of election results live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch,…Read more...

Two poll challengers—one wearing a Halloween mask, the other refusing to wear her face mask properly—were kicked out of a Detroit polling station on Monday as workers began processing absentee ballots from the city.Read more...

You might not be familiar with the name Shelia Eldridge, but you should be.Read more...

Many people were horrified this weekend after seeing images of a group of people marching to go vote in North Carolina last weekend being pepper-sprayed and arrested by police. Rev. Greg Drumwright, one of the leaders of the march, has announced another event for Election Day.

Well, it’s official. Cardi B has decided to call off the divorce from her husband, Migos member Offset. Fulton County, Ga., court documents cite that the divorce was dismissed “without prejudice.” But is anyone really surprised?

While medical professionals have repeatedly said that simple tasks such as social distancing, wearing face masks, and washing your hands could be instrumental in slowing the spread of COVID-19, white folks nationwide simply ain’t trying to hear that. Which sucks, because their inability to just listen has resulted in…Read more...

A training program for Kentucky State Police quoted Adolf Hitler and the Nazis not once, not twice, but three times, a student newspaper in Louisville recently reported.Read more...

From the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Trump have butted heads.

In case you didn’t know, Beyoncé has officially endorsed presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden for this year’s election.Read more...

In September, The Root reported that the commander-in-white-fragility that y’all call president ordered all federal agencies to end anti-racism training and any other training that implements critical race theory.Read more...

Once upon a time, in 2016, a cop got hit in the face with a rock during a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge, La., and decided that one of the leaders of said protest, DeRay Mckesson, was responsible. In 2017, a federal judge decided that’s not how any of this works and dismissed a lawsuit filed by the cop…Read more...

If you’re an avid reader or writer, you might have three bucket-list-style ambitions in life: 1. to have your own library of over 1,000 books; 2. to write even one book as powerful as the several written by Toni Morrison; 3. to touch even one thing the Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winner touched, hoping an ounce of her…Read more...

This one hurts.

Kenya Barris is really embodying the theme song for his latest TV show, #BlackAF, Jay Rock’s “WIN” (which is in heavy rotation in my headphones because it’s one of my favorite hype songs right now).Read more...

When the dust settles and a winner of the presidential election is declared tomorrow night or some time in 2023, the results will immediately be proceeded by a vast and annoying ecosystem of discourse attempting to find answers, give thanks, and assign blame. Fortunately, we do not have to wait that long to perform…Read more...

Jaime Harrison could go on the campaign trail and drag his GOP opponent Sen. Lindsey Graham through the mud for being a begging-on-TV, I-ain’t-got-no-money-ass-bitch.

The way elections normally work is that both candidates running for office usually wait until there is no clear path to victory for their opponent before they declare themselves the winner.