The Root

In 2016, Korryn Gaines was fatally shot by Baltimore police after they attempted to enter her home. Her family sued, and after two years in court, a jury eventually rewarded them over $37 million in damages. A judge overturned that verdict last year, arguing that the officer was protected under “qualified immunity.”

In recent months, we’ve seen people lose their jobs as a result of being racist. A woman in North Carolina has learned that it can also cost you your home.

Regardless of their occupation, quite a few white Americans are dead set on ensuring systemic racism continues in this country. Take, for instance, a Catholic priest based in Indiana who told his followers that the Black Lives Matters movement is comprised of “maggots and parasites.”Read more...

As a young girl, Maya Moore dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player. But after conquering the sport as an adult, and abandoning that dream in order to pursue criminal justice reform, another dream of hers has now become a reality.

The Root is a hate group.Read more...

Nearly four in ten Asian and Black Americans say they’ve experienced racist behavior or attacks toward them since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new study conducted by the Pew Research Center.Read more...

Welcome to the latter half of 2020—we made it!Read more...

Imagine being put in prison for a crime you didn’t commit and then being pardoned over 20 years later under the condition that you don’t raise complaints you may have against the arresting officers, prosecutors, or your imprisonment.Read more...

Fans of the NBA 2K series are in for a treat.

I am 6.Read more...

Aside from my personal mission to convince the planet that Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” is the greatest song of all time, the only other conversation I feel super passionately about is about the fluidity of language and my distaste for the disregard for so-called “not real words” like “conversate” and…Read more...

When’s the last time I’ve done one of these? Hmmm...actually, it doesn’t matter because time doesn’t exist in 2020. It’s a construct! Let’s live in the here and now and get to this Black-ass content on Netflix for July...Read more...

This is no “Karen” story.Read more...

President Trump started his Wednesday morning the way he normally does. He woke from his sleeping coffin, pulled South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham from his woven cot and began punching him in his ball gag until his knuckles turned pink. He then walked into the presidential kitchen in which he stepped on the backs of…Read more...

If the COVID-19 crisis hadn’t introduced zeitgeist-crashing terms like “coronavirus” and “social distancing” to our lexicon, “Karen” might have very well been the word of 2020. There have been explainers about it—one of which I wrote to distinguish it from “Becky.” There have been arguments over whether it’s racist…Read more...

The filmed version of the original Broadway hit Hamilton is coming during a timely moment—not just because we’re stuck in our homes during self-isolation amid a pandemic, but because it allows us an opportunity to revisit and reckon with the history of this nation’s founding fathers during a national uprising.

If you’re a fan of true crime podcasts, it can be a real challenge finding a well-produced show anchored by a Black host. Thankfully, award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien is more than equipped to accomplish such a feat and has blessed us all with her latest endeavor, Murder on the Towpath.Read more...

The nation’s largest resource for women in politics is recognizing a rising force in the political world. On Thursday, EMILY’s List announced its 2020 recipient of the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award is Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, who represents Ohio’s 34th House District. The award, due to be…Read more...

Ending unspoken racial quotas; enforcing equal and fair auditions; better protections across all workplaces; and providing access to the best-paying shifts are just these are some of the things that the Portland-based “stripper strike” is demanding.Read more...

I know that I consistently refer to white men who make racists comments as racists but I’m starting to rethink that.

You really can’t blame Black people for believing that excessive force is just the police go-to for dealing with Black people when they get into heated exchanges with them. If our lived experiences weren’t enough to convince us of this, the fact that we can’t seem to go more than a week without seeing a new viral…Read more...

“The things Angelica did: THAT,” said The Root’s Entertainment Writer Tonja Stidhum upon seeing Angelica Ross’ new pictorial, photographed by Malik Ahmir and styled by Amiyah Scott for Interview magazine. And looking like this (with bamboo earrings, to boot), that could really be the whole post. In fact, if you…Read more...

2020 is a pivotal year for many reasons, one of those being that it’s a presidential election year. The discussion around voters’ rights and voter suppression have been recent hot topics, especially witnessing what has been happening in Kentucky as well as the ongoing push for the Senate to pass the HEROES Act.Read more...

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Apparently, somewhere along the line, hitting protesters with a car just became the default move of authority figures. While we’ve seen multiple police officers employ this horrific tactic over the last month, a driver for the Governor of Iowa has become the latest to use it as well.Read more...

The judge presiding over the trial of the four Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd has threatened to have the case tried outside of the city if the lawyers involved continue to make “inappropriate” public statements.

Justice League star Ray Fisher seems to be calling for some justice of his own.Read more...

At this point, it’s pretty clear that cops are by and large, pretty trash. Eight cops in Louisiana have only reinforced that assertion after allegedly beating two men over a seatbelt violation.Read more...

It wouldn’t be a week in America without a Florida man doing Florida man things. This week’s Florida man is Joseph Max Fucheck who, after seeing a Black man checking his mail, decided to pull a gun on him and go on a racist rant.Read more...

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the Denver Division of the FBI released a joint statement Tuesday confirming that they have been reviewing the facts in the case of Elijah McClain, the 23-year-old Black man who died last August after an…Read more...

The Root partnered with HBO Max for a very special conversation about On The Record, HBO Max’s documentary, which chronicles numerous sexual assault allegations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and explores the ways Black women’s voices are silenced in the music industry and beyond.Read more...

If you’ve ever wondered why Donald Trump’s skin looks like a piece of Goldfish cracker-flavored beef jerky, it might be because he’s been sleeping on sperm-flavored pillowcases moistened with an assortment of random booty juices.Read more...

There are a lot of misconceptions about what defunding the police means, which, at its simplest definition, is a reallocation of resources. Everyday citizens assess their budgets on a regular basis to determine if they are wasting money and could spend their precious dollars more efficiently. As police officers…Read more...

Have you ever heard the story of how Florida was created?

Mark McCloskey, one half of the husband-and-wife pair recently captured on video looking ridiculous while brandishing weapons at demonstrators passing by their St. Louis home, is now complaining that his “life has been ruined.”

On Feb. 8 in Valdosta, Ga., white police officers walked up behind a Black man who was already being questioned by another police officer, who was also Black. One of the white officers, without even announcing his presence, grabbed the Black man from behind, commanded him to put his hands behind his back then, within…Read more...

President Donald Trump, the man voted most likely to rub soft carrots all over his flaccid body, has weaponized Twitter once again by threatening to veto a national defense bill if an amendment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (It should’ve been you and not Joe Biden!) demanding that military bases honoring the losers that…Read more...

A white woman was forced to call all the managers—the police, corporate headquarters and the actual manager of a Long Island, N.Y., department store—after she was brutally assaulted by a Target employee’s Black Lives Matter mask.Read more...

I have two children under the age of 3, which basically means I’m tired of clapping.

Putting Black faces in high places will not be the solution to structural racism in the United States. And while drug-fueled gun violence in the oft-maligned city of Chicago is an objectively horrifying problem, violating the constitutional rights of young Black men isn’t the way to address it, either.

Maybe it really is time we stop giving white people who seek to weaponize the police against Black people cutesy little nicknames like “BBQ Becky” or “Central Park Karen.” Perhaps it’s time for more fitting monikers like “Terrorist Tammy” or “Killer by Police Kathy.”Read more...

With Juneteenth hitting the national radar this year, I think it’s finally safe for us to give up all pretense of actually celebrating America’s independence (gained while we were still enslaved), and instead enjoy a long weekend full of socially distanced, dutifully masked fun! (Besides, we’ve already had our fill of…Read more...

On Tuesday, August Alsina published a video from his recent sit-down with Angela Yee for a very lengthy conversation surrounding his new album The Product III: stateofEMERGEncy, his documentary stateofEMERGEncy: The Rise of August Alsina, his life, love and more.Read more...

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In a world where you, an elderly white man, are in a presidential race in which you are trying to defeat the super boss evil overlord orange elderly white man with the (alleged) Adderall sniffs, how do you overcome his rabidly racist base while still trying to seemingly stay on the side of right?Read more...

It’s time to welcome a new class into the most elite membership in the film industry. On Tuesday, The Academy announced it is welcoming 819 new members.

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It’s taken a long time, but change is coming to Mississippi: Our state flag—with its archaic symbol of the confederacy—is finally coming down.Read more...

The pioneering and still most prominent media brand for Black women will once again have one at the helm—at least, for the immediate future. This is just one of the announcements Essence Communications made in a statement emailed to The Glow Up on Tuesday night, just two days after a now-viral open letter was…Read more...

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