The Root

Calling Ibram X. Kendi, Ph.D., “accomplished” is quite the understatement.Read more...

Christopher Columbus is considered a hero of racists, and rightfully so. He was an inept sailor who stumbled upon an inhabited land, claimed it as his own and then had the police, who traveled with him, kill everyone who lived there over small infractions including jogging, jaywalking and sleeping, and those they…Read more...

Less than an hour before the Game 6 of the NBA Finals showdown between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat, the Heat gave me a glimmer of hope:Read more...

Last week, former Wolfe City, Texas, Police Officer Shaun Lucas was charged with murder in the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Jonathan Price on October 3. Now, Black residents in Wolfe City are speaking out and claiming that even before that the night of the shooting, Lucas had already earned a reputation of being a …Read more...

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Master P has been making ‘em say “ughhhhh” for years—and now, he’s going to make his acceptance speech at the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards for a major reason. The rapper, actor and record producer has been named the recipient of the “I Am Hip Hop” Award and will be honored at this year’s upcoming ceremony.Read more...

I bet you miss her.

The next episode of “Zoom Where it Happens,” the online live table reading series launched by Black women to entertain viewers and encourage them to vote this year, will feature Black entertainers from the fields of sports and comedy portraying characters from the iconic Black sitcom Sanford and Son.

The President has returned to his campaigning activities despite his coronavirus diagnosis, delivering a speech from the White House on Saturday in which he called on the surprising number of Black and Latino people in attendance to vote Democrats “into oblivion.”Read more...

Nigeria’s Police Force says it has disbanded its Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), in response to a wave of protests online and in the streets of the African nation this week decrying the unit as an arm of corruption and rampant police brutality.

The presiding judge in the criminal case facing Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer captured on camera kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes–ultimately killing him—has adjusted the terms of Chauvin’s recently posted bail so the defendant can leave Minnesota and live in another state.

Philanthropist and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, Mellody Hobson, has gifted her alma mater Princeton University with a major donation to construct a new residential college on the site of one previously named after Woodrow Wilson.

If you were browsing Twitter on Friday, you may have noticed that #LindsayGrahamHasCOVID was trending.

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State lawmakers in Louisiana have moved to make it easier for students to appeal expulsions after a Black child was suspended last month for having a BB gun in his room.Read more...

Karens don’t matter.Read more...

Howdy, folks! It’s Friday, which means it’s time to save y’all some money. This week sees the continuation of Sony’s Games of a Generation Sale and Xbox currently has a Warner Bros., publisher sale along with the standard deals with gold. It’s not a particularly stacked week but there were some gems to be found.Read more...

This year has had some soul-crushing moments in all aspects of life and the movie theater industry has definitely taken a super-hard hit.Read more...

In Florida, State Attorney Aramis Ayala has launched a program to reduce the amount of people prosecuted for non-violently resisting arrest.

If you’ve never been Black surrounded by a constant overwhelm of White—at school, your place of work, in your neighborhood—just know there can never be enough memoirs, screenplays or comedies to exhaust the complex experience. You are ever a racial ambassador, an explainer of non-white culturisms, a human Google for…Read more...

You’re probably looking at the headline and thinking, “Wait a damn minute, Halloween hasn’t even arrived yet, and we’re already talking about Christmas?!” Yes. If there is one constant in 2020 (spoiler: there are no constants in 2020 other than the constantly unpredictable news) it’s that the Christmas season trumps…Read more...

Today, there is no lede.Read more...

Stephen A. Crockett Jr., your senior editor at this very website, and I have a running bet that the NFL won’t last until Week 8—I mean, Week 7—due to its inability to circumvent COVID-19. And if today’s news is any indication, we should probably bump that up to Week 6.Read more...

The NBA is a business.Read more...

A Black man was jogging in Boston when he said he was racially profiled and stopped by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After viewing video footage of the incident the man recorded, the city’s mayor and lawmakers are calling for accountability.Read more...

In a world where Black people are faced with racism, injustice and ongoing affronts to our dignity, it is as imperative that we maintain our mental health.Read more...

Maya Wiley, civil rights activist and attorney, has made her candidacy official, announcing it Thursday with a play on a frozen video call that she’s officially running for mayor of New York City.

Hey nieces and nephews. Can you believe we are at the end of the first week of October already? 2020 has been something else, and as we are still trying to catch our breath, 2021 is peeking around the corner like Wilona on some “Hey y’all!”Read more...

As I write this Kinja post, my Haitian mother walks over and sees the thumbnail of Yamiche Alcindor’s face.Read more...

My family will soon welcome a new baby into our household so it only makes sense to dedicate a playlist to songs about kids and/or songs with “baby” in the title. The Root’s weekly playlist is going to be taking a hiatus. Thanks for sleepwalking with us and we’ll see you on the other side (“of the war”; Hamilton…Read more...

Her first book may have been her “undoing,” but journalist and author Morgan Jerkins’ second offering, Wandering in Strange Lands (HarperCollins), is a homecoming. Taking a detour from the “hot-takes” upon which she built her career and the provocative personal essays that comprised her bestselling debut, This Will Be…Read more...

Yelp, the company that specializes in crowd-sourced business reviews, announced Thursday that it will now warn users about businesses that have been accused of “overt” racism. Conservatives responded to this news with sighs of relief knowing that the “minorities” whose wellbeing they’re always concerned about will be…Read more...

If there’s one thing that really gets under the Trump administration’s craw, it’s humiliation—which might explain the perverse pleasure so many of us derived by seeing a housefly make itself comfortable atop Mike Pence’s otherwise pristine, supremacist-white hair for several minutes during Wednesday night’s…Read more...

The president of people who call computers “puters” will undergo a “medical evaluation” on television, which brings me to a few thoughts:

First-time voters, you’re not alone.Read more...

Much of my family will be in New Castle, Pa., this weekend to mourn the losses and celebrate the lives of my Uncle Donnie (who died last month) and my Aunt Doe (who died in April). This is happening this way because COVID-19. COVID-19 is why we had no service for my aunt in the spring. COVID-19 is why my dad and his…Read more...

Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death has given Donald Trump and the GOP another opportunity to stack the court with another conservative who could threaten to reverse Roe vs. Wade, undo the Affordable Care Act and many more progressive pieces of Democratic legislation. Technically, Republicans have enough votes to ram the…Read more...

She’s the youngest actress to win an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Emmy—and as it turns out, she’s an ecological winner, too! Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) reports that actress and fashion icon Zendaya will be awarded the 2020 Visionary Award at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards (GCFAs), an Italian-based awards…Read more...

The year 2020 has served as an opportunity for many people to pivot in their careers—and the same can be said for programming in the arts.Read more...

If you got a snowflake emoji out of the blue recently, you can blame Quavo.Read more...

A pioneering advocate for the trans community who was instrumental in changing the way much of the media regards and reports on trans lives has died. Houston-based journalist-activist Monica Roberts, founder of the TransGriot blog and host of the TransGriot with Monica Roberts YouTube series, “was called home to glory…Read more...

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Over the summer, rapper Tory Lanez solidified his status as fuckboy extraordinaire after it was revealed he was allegedly responsible for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot.

In a move shocking absolutely no one, Missouri’s Republican governor has said he would “most certainly” pardon the bootleg Bonnie and Clyde seen pointing guns at protesters over the summer.Read more...

Man...2020 is officially not one of Michael Bay’s better movies.Read more...

The NAACP has called on the head of the Louisiana State Police to quit as more and more atrocities continue to mount in the organization.Read more...

As we’ve witnessed over the past few months, there is a racial reckoning happening across several industries. Whether it’s Hollywood or tech, the journey toward abolishing systemic racism seems to be starting with open and honest conversations and ideally, ending with actual substantive change.Read more...

After reviewing thousands of pages concerning officers’ involvement in the death of Breonna Taylor, a Louisville investigator concluded that the entire debacle was based on a “misleading” affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment, recommending possible criminal charges for the offending…Read more...

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A Texas Grand jury indicted Netflix Tuesday over the French film Cuties, charging the streaming company with “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.”Read more...