The Root

Last Thursday, Janelle Monáe took part in a special performance for Verizon’s Pay It Forward Live, which aims to support small businesses affected by COVID-19. In her Instagram caption promoting the event, she placed an emphasis on wanting to help small businesses owned by women and minorities.

Another violent arrest shared online has raised more questions about how fairly and safely the NYPD is enforcing social distancing measures in the city.

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One issue that comes up repeatedly as the coronavirus pandemic interferes with the 2020 election season is how to ensure that people can vote safely. While Republicans seem hellbent on forcing voters to choose between risking their health to vote in person or staying home and not voting at all, Democrats have filed a…Read more...

If there’s any self-care mantra I can offer to anyone right now, it’s to believe in yourself the way French Montana believes in himself.Read more...

President Trump and other conservatives certainly love pushing the narrative that reopening America is what the American people want, but a recent poll shows that narrative is far from truthful. Instead, the poll shows that a strong majority of Americans oppose the reopening of non-essential businesses and would be…Read more...

While elite talents like Jadeveon Clowney and Cam Newton spend their quarantine wondering if they’ll be on an NFL roster come training camp, Super Bowl champion Marshawn Lynch apparently has other plans.

Numa Perrier is inviting us to her “house,” and it’s going to be thrilling!Read more...

As the NBA seeks to salvage what’s left of its season during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, teams throughout the league have been forced to make difficult decisions in order to cut costs and stay afloat. Employees have been laid off and both league execs and players have forfeited big chunks of their exorbitant…Read more...

The Office and Jack Ryan star John Krasinski is trying to offer glimmers of joy during this dumpster fire of a year with his weekly YouTube show, Some Good News. The premise of the show finds the actor and director highlighting some of the best things he’s seen on the internet through fan submissions, such as acts of…Read more...

Back in my fuckboi days, when I had like four girlfriends, I used to do a move I called, “divide and keep dividing.”

As a piece of pop art, as a nostalgia delivery device, as a triumph in film editing and story construction, and as a coronatine monotony breaker, The Last Dance delivers. There’s not much new information here for me—I became an NBA diehard in 1986, and I saw much of what’s depicted here in real-time—but it’s still…Read more...

Barack and Michelle Obama are set to give separate commencement addresses during YouTube’s live-streamed graduation ceremony, which is slated to be held on June 6 on the video platform’s Originals channel and their Learn@Home site.

It looks like the dramatic lives of the Greenleafs are coming to a conclusion. That’s right, the popular OWN show following the megachurch family is officially ending for good with its upcoming fifth season.Read more...

Another Mother’s Day dawns this Sunday, and if you’re lucky enough to have a loving matriarch still physically present in your life, no doubt you’re holding her that much closer this year (virtually, of course). The COVID crisis has made us all reflect on how precious life is and how much we should honor and cherish…Read more...

Two paragons of black beauty turn 50 this month, and as much of the world continues to shelter-in-place, Essence magazine and Naomi Campbell are celebrating their joint milestone together—yet apart—as the soon-to-be 50-year-old supermodel provided a series of “self-portraits in isolation” for the magazine’s May/June…Read more...

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is Trump’s mouthpiece. She is a news outlet favorite because she can spin any Trump fuckup into a beautiful word salad of bullshit. It’s truly a skill.

Kid Cudi and Megan Thee Stallion are having a good week. In fact, it’s a historic week for both artists, in regards to personal career milestones.Read more...

Along with the pomp and circumstance of graduation, one of the signature rites of passage for high school students that has also been canceled by the pandemic is the senior prom. But two students from Forsyth County, Ga., provided hundreds of fellow high schoolers with a virtual senior prom Saturday via Instagram Live…Read more...

Not only did the “Savage (Remix)” stop time and space when it essentially dropped out of thin air last week, the Megan Thee Stallion and Beyoncé track also aimed to raise funds for those who are in need of assistance due to the effects of COVID-19. Per Click2Houston, proceeds earned from the sale of the song will be…Read more...

Last week, fans fiending for nostalgia were treated to an impromptu The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion courtesy of Will Smith, who helped transform the show into a cultural phenomenon. And as the cast and critics continue their yearlong celebration of the 30th anniversary of this landmark sitcom, DJ Jazzy Jeff will…Read more...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the man who once closed a beach because of a state government shutdown and then took his ass to that closed beach to chill, said Monday that the country is going to lose a few people to the coronavirus but it needs to reopen anyway.

Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley penned an open letter to former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday calling for the presumptive presidential Democratic nominee to give a response that “models the empathy, diligence, and acknowledgment of broken systems that this conversation demands.”Read more...

While undeniably heartbreaking, it’s no surprise that black and brown people are disproportionately affected by the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the CDC, as of mid-April, roughly 33 percent of COVID-19 fatalities are African-American people.

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A 53-year-old man who was helping to plan armed protests against social distancing in Colorado is facing federal charges after the FBI found four pipe bombs in his home last Friday.Read more...

We called it: Nikole Hannah-Jones, the investigative journalist who was the brainchild of the groundbreaking 1619 project, is an embodiment of unity. Today, the Pulitzer Prize Board recognized it too by awarding Hannah-Jones the 2020 Pulitzer for Commentary.Read more...

I’d wager that a lot of us are spending significantly more time on social media these days. I know my phone—where I consume, probably, 80 percent of my social media—is always near which means I’m scrolling through news, sales, hot takes, Michael Jordan truther takes (truly a subgenre unto itself), fake news,…Read more...

Meet Dave Fennoy, the man behind the voice of some of the most popular video game characters around. The award-winning actor is perhaps most known for voicing The Walking Dead’s Lee Everett and is credited for countless other roles. You may also recognize his voice from shows like Young Sheldon, early Hulu…Read more...

Police in Flint, Mich. are on the lookout for two men who are accused of fatally shooting a Family Dollar security guard on Friday after he asked a woman to put on a mask before entering the store.

On Oct. 14, 2019, 12-year-old Akeelah Jackson was hit by a police car as she stepped into the street on her way home in St. Louis County, Mo. Jackson died of her injuries one month later on Nov. 12. Now, the officer involved is charged in her death.Read more...

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to pick apart black and brown communities at devastating rates, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters and other lawmakers are fighting fiercely to protect communities of color from one of the most devastating effects of a looming recession: losing their homes.Read more...

The first Monday in May is auspicious enough in the world of fashion to require a documentary named after it; it signals the start of Spring and a guaranteed roster of which celebrities are still deemed important enough to land an invitation to Anna Wintour’s Met Gala. But the “Superbowl of Fashion,” as style…Read more...

Want to take another trip down memory lane while in the confines of your house during self-isolation? Well, you’re in luck, because LL Cool J (born James Todd Smith) reminisced about his impact on the hip-hop game.Read more...

Nobody wants to sleep on the couch.Read more...

The solidly listenable and immediately forgettable Dark Lane Demo Tapes is quintessential Drake—vacillating, as he’s wont to do, from haughty trap elevator angst to nostalgia for shit that just happened 17 minutes ago. It’s the music you listen to when driving to and eating at The Cheesecake Factory, alone, while…Read more...

If we have learned anything since the beginning of the coronavirus health crisis, it’s that a global pandemic isn’t enough for white supremacists to take a break. In Santee, Calif., one grocery store shopper wore a Ku Klux Klan hood as a face covering to demonstrate safe social distancing practices while letting…Read more...

Trump brings out the “ass” in “assassinated.”

With the first-ever female Verzuz battle between Erykah Badu and Jill Scott happening this weekend, a few other talented women’s names are being tossed around for potential battles in the future. Fans are clamoring for a possible matchup of R&B superstars and longtime rivals, Brandy and Monica.

This book isn’t just for white women.

If you aren’t watching ESPN’s docu-series The Last Dance you’re living life wrong. But luckily for you, I am. So here’s a recap of what the rest of us got to enjoy during Episodes 5 and 6.

Last week, hundreds of disgruntled citizens gathered outside of Michigan’s state capitol building in defiance of the state’s stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. Many of the protesters were holding rifles and, according to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, many of them were also holding bigotry…Read more...

We get it: With everything going on in the world, it can be difficult to carve out time to discover new music. Industry-pushed tunes that you may not even bang with like that could also get in the way of you finding something that tingles your consumer taste buds.

In “things our grandmas watched, thus made us watch too” news, Little House on the Prairie (which originally aired from 1974-1983) was trending on Twitter and one specific actor was the center of the discussion—Todd Bridges.Read more...

As thousands of New Yorkers hit city parks this weekend to revel in warm spring weather, footage of the violent arrest of three people, two of whom were accused of not following social distancing guidelines, has sparked an internal NYPD investigation.Read more...

CNN host Don Lemon, who has been the subject of several of President Trump’s rage tweets, has had enough of Trump’s Eminem-like obsession with the Mariah Carey of former presidents, Barack Obama. On Sunday, the president of people who refuse to social distance because they have to get to Cracker Barrel retweeted a…Read more...

Looks like Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have learned at least one valuable lesson about spin control after years of dealing with the press: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The now semi-royal couple may currently be embroiled in a legal battle with several publications, but Deadline reports that they…Read more...

The late Aaliyah Haughton was ahead of her time when she sang the 2000 hit, “Try Again.” Not only did she look fly as hell in the music video, but the lyric that still sticks out today is “dust yourself off and try again.” Why? Because that’s what we’re going to have to do whenever outside opens the hell up again!Read more...

They tried to make it nice.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve been trying my best to lean into any moments of joy I can find during this dystopian timeline we are now living in.