Empire is going to be crazier this season. That’s what one of the Fox show’s stars, Jussie Smollett, promises. That Empire will be much crazier than last season is a feat that sounds impossible, but Smollett swears the writers, actors and producers embraced the craziness challenge and kicked the drama up beyond a few notches, going…

The headlines may say that activist DeRay Mckesson was offered a teaching position at Yale; they may say he’s getting paid $40,000 for it—but don’t believe the hype. Mckesson, best known for his prolific voice on race and black liberation on Twitter and his work as an outspoken activist, is not Yale’s newest professor. He’s…

He’s really into cleanliness. And you all are lucky (or unlucky, depending on your POV) he wasn’t naked. That’s what Jussie Smollett told The Root about a viral video of him mopping floors while his co-star Gabourey Sidibe cheered him on. The video popped up on Aug. 6 and has been retweeted more than 3,000…

It’s hard out there for a black filmmaker. But it’s also hard out there for an Asian filmmaker. And a Latino movie director. And a female director or screenwriter. It’s hard, period, if you don’t fit the standard mold of white and male in Hollywood. But Selma director Ava DuVernay is determined to change that.…

In the Black Lives Matter movement, the only “weapons” protesters wield are their mouths, but you wouldn’t know that from the way the activists and organizers are being spoken about by some in the press. Suddenly, Fox News pundits are talking as if Black Lives Matter is responsible for a recent shooting of a police officer…

What responsibility do artists have to our changing times? That was one of the questions that came up throughout the first annual Blackout for Human Rights Music and Film Festival in Los Angeles on Saturday. Blackout for Human Rights is a collective of activists, artists, filmmakers, musicians and more who are committing their time and…

When I was 21, a police officer at the scene of a fire cursed me out. It didn’t matter that I was there with a camera crew and working for a TV station in St. Louis. It didn’t matter that I was absolutely nowhere near the fire (I was standing across the street). He thought…

It’s hard to write about something you know is stupid. You try to come up with words. Something fancy or deep. Profundity, be mine! But the only thing you want to say is, “This is dumb, so dumb.” Right now, on the Internet, some conservatives are trying to digitally relitigate Plessy v. Ferguson because it…

Editor’s note: When it comes to keeping a movement going, you have to have a good understanding of what is getting in your way. In the final installment of the series After the Fire, The Root looks at what challenges this current social-justice movement is facing and what the future may hold. After the Fire was…