The Root

On the same day that Drew Brees made it his sovereign duty to be dead-ass wrong, some of the biggest names in the NFL opted to counter that narrative.

Breonna Taylor would be 27 years old today. Unfortunately, she is now with the ancestors, cut down prematurely by a police system that devalues black bodies. She, along with too many other black women whose lives were cut too short often go under-acknowledged. This playlist honors them.

Nearly three months after 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by the Louisville Metro Police Department in a botched drug raid, no officers have been charged in her killing. In fact, since her death, another black person, West Louisville barbecue caterer David McAtee, was shot and killed by law…Read more...

Nearly three months after the Devil (and Rudy Gobert) stole our joy, comes the news that the NBA will be making its triumphant return. I’m sure you have plenty of questions about how in the hell this will all play out, so I’ll do my best to answer them all.Read more...

I mean…

On the day of George Floyd’s memorial service, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul just couldn’t pass up the moment to be an asshole. Paul, who has the hair of wet spaghetti noodles, wanted to add an amendment to the bipartisan anti-lynching legislation because he had nothing to do with writing it, and it’s hard for people like…Read more...

Boxes containing more than 2,000 Black Lives Matter cloth face masks intended to protect protesters were seized by law enforcement agents in California, says the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL).

If you’re a fan of trying to keep up with what’s hot on social media right now, odds are you know about TikTok. The video-creation app has been all the rage for the past few months, and during quarantine, dance and comedy videos have been keeping many people busy and entertained.

If you consider yourself a regular at Sephora, no doubt you’ve signed up for and accumulated points and rewards through their Beauty Insider Program—maybe you’re even enough of a product junkie to be a VIB or Rouge member and participate in their active online community. But for the month of June—also known as Pride…Read more...

On Thursday, after an investigator offered heartbreaking new details about the events that led up to the death of Ahmaud Arbery—including that one of the men was heard using a racial slur after Arbery was killed—a Georgia judge ruled that the three men charged in Arbery’s death would stand trial for murder.Read more...

When it feels like we’re trapped in an endless loop of police killings and the fights to dismantle the system that perpetuates it, we often can’t help but ask, “Where do we go from here?”Read more...

Aurora James has a plan. As well-meaning citizens and brands alike ask what they can do to support black lives, the black female founder of luxury footwear and accessories brand Brother Vellies has issued a challenge to major retailers—including Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Net a Porter,…Read more...

Protests have raged across the country in righteous outrage at the police killing of George Floyd. In Phoenix, protests have been held not only in honor of Floyd but also for Dion Johnson, the 28-year-old black man who was shot and killed by an Arizona Department of Safety Trooper the same day Floyd died at the hands…Read more...

The Louisville Metro Council’s Public Safety Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to approve Breonna’s Law, an ordinance that would mandate all officers have to wear body cameras while executing no-knock warrants.Read more...

One of the most powerful moments during the memorial service Thursday for George Floyd occurred near the end of the ceremony as attendees stood in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck.Read more...

A medical examiner’s report revealed that a black man died of oxygen deprivation while being detained by police after exclaiming, “I can’t breathe”—and that man’s name is not George Floyd.Read more...

Who here cares about animals? They’re super fluffy, and whatever your choice make great companions. My love for pets made me realize that maybe I should make a list of some of my favorite cruelty-free beauty brands and highlight one product from each, just to support the movement. I’m not vegan or anything, but I do…Read more...

Actress Regina King spoke with Jimmy Kimmel via video chat for his late-night talk show on Wednesday, in which they discussed the latest developments regarding global protests stemming from the senseless murder of George Floyd last week, and how systemic racism needs to be abolished.

When I was in elementary school and the bully was messing with me, I would do this thing where I would go to the office and say I had a stomachache. They would call my grandfather and he’d come pick me up. It wasn’t the smoothest move and it didn’t save me from getting picked on but for that one day, I was free of…Read more...

In the ongoing fight for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, black boxes and squares are Hollywood’s deus ex machina.

Jade’s video for “Don’t Walk Away” is one of those joints that you could toss into a 90s time capsule, open it 50 years from now and have a very clear, if not confused, understanding of what the early 90s in young black America looked like. Everything about this video is awesome and remarkably of its time.Read more...

Gabrielle Union has filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH) against the producers of America’s Got Talent, citing harassment, discrimination and retaliation.Read more...

There’s an iconic scene in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic Malcolm X, in which a real-life standoff with the NYPD that occurred on April 26, 1957, is reenacted for the screen. Following the police beating of both a young black man and Nation of Islam member Johnson X Hinton, who’d attempted to intervene, lines of men…Read more...

On Thursday, during preliminary hearings in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, an investigator revealed damning evidence against Travis and Greg McMichael and William Bryan, the three men charged with Arbery’s death.

A common argument made by racist-memorabilia-loving white people who still swear to white Jesus that they aren’t racist is that the tearing down of Confederate monuments is an attempt at erasing history.Read more...

Tough week, huh?

On Wednesday afternoon, the New York Times opinion section published an op-ed from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton entitled “Send in the Military.” It was exactly the kind of article you would expect from Cotton, who has the brains and demeanor of a white supremacist meerkat (he notably was once held up by the New Yorker…Read more...

I don’t know what started it, and truthfully, I don’t care. But at some point during an interview between antifa and the Proud Boys, the mud started slinging, the wheels fell off the wagon and mayonnaise went flying everywhere.

It appears the people of the United States have chosen Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” as their protest songs of choice.Read more...

The memorial service for George Floyd will be livestreamed across multiple broadcast and cable networks on Thursday, allowing millions of people to collectively mourn the life of the 46-year-old man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25.Read more...

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees reminded us all on Wednesday that while he is certainly a spectacular athlete beloved by pro football fans all over the country—he’s still white. Not just white, but white and out of touch. So out of touch, in fact, that he resurrected crusty old narratives from 2016 about how…Read more...

This has been a rough time for politicians.

Meghan Markle wants to make it clear: “George Floyd’s life mattered.” The Duchess of Sussex had been conspicuously silent this past week as protests and uprisings around the country escalated in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, only issuing an online statement of solidarity urging followers to “speak up…Read more...

It’s Pride Month and Da Brat is celebrating the LGBTQIA commemoration for the first time this year, after having been the subject of swirling rumors surrounding her sexuality for decades. In a recent Variety feature titled, “Da Brat’s Coming Out Story Is 25 Years in the Making,” the rapper-turned-radio-personality…Read more...

Honeywell Fan | $15 | AmazonRead more...

Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk had a very important discussion about gun violence and the trauma it places on the women who lose the special men in their lives to it. The episode aired on the social media site Tuesday.

20% Off Deluxe Rapid Egg Cooker | $24 | Amazon Gold Box

In the week that has passed since Tony McDade’s killing at the hands of a Tallahassee police officer, everything and nothing has changed.Read more...

On Wednesday evening, Barack Obama sought to give the sort of public address that Donald Trump has thus far failed to give: validating the concerns of protesters and offering them encouragement—while offering, controversially, an olive branch to law enforcement.Read more...

The past week has seen people all over the country protest against police violence after video was released showing George Floyd death as the result of Minneapolis Police officers placing their knee on his neck, suffocating him. Now, an officer in Sarasota, Fl. are under investigation for using a similar tactic.

Frank Rizzo was a truly awful human being. As police commissioner and later mayor of Philadelphia through the ’70s, he spent his time in power terrorizing black and LGBTQ communities. Despite this information being common knowledge, a statue erected in his honor stood in front of city hall for more than two decades.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is supposed to be exactly what it sounds like—an agency tasked with combatting drug trafficking and distribution in the United States. Since the department was formed in 1973, enforcing federal drug laws has been its one job...until Sunday. Over the weekend, the DEA was grated…Read more...

Emma Amos may not have enjoyed the same level of name recognition of some of her contemporaries in the art world; but as an artist addressing sexism and racism in her work years before the term “intersectionality “ was coined, she was a pivotal figure in what she called “a man’s scene, black or white.” A member of the…Read more...

*Cue Star Wars theme* A short time ago in a country far, far away, John Boyega once again proved that he’s about that life—black life, to be specific.Read more...

Compared to most cities its size, Birmingham, Ala., didn’t really have a police brutality problem. While extrajudicial killings are always a problem, Birmingham sat near the bottom of the spectrum for American cities with 4.7 police killings per 100,000 citizens, according to Mapping Police Violence. And curiously, as…Read more...

Outside of the social media initiative Blackout Tuesday, which encouraged internet folks to post a black square to show their solidarity with the black community and then continue to work to end racial injustice, June 2 was an election day in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Indiana, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Iowa, Montana,…Read more...

We have to admit—#BlackOutTuesday didn’t go the way its originators intended. Though we tried to alleviate a bit of confusion with a quick explainer that morning, some of the spiraling was unavoidable and unfortunately, the intended message was lost in the muddled mess.Read more...

Outrage against police brutality has spread across the country in the week following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. On Friday, Derek Chauvin, the fired officer seen with his knee on Floyd’s neck, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

If Twitter and Snapchat are Jalen Rose, Facebook is Jason Whitlock.

Every black family has to have “the talk” at some point. Lord knows the opportunity keeps presenting itself and most of us never quite know how to approach it with our children or relatives.Read more...