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How to Go From #BlackLivesMatter to #BlackPolicyMatters
How do we go from #BlackLivesMatter to changing the policies that devalue black life? This moment feels both full of possibility and also in danger of going unfulfilled. Folks across the political spectrum are finally confronting the issue of police violence, but there’s little consensus about how to fix it. Organizations like Campaign Zero are…
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Where Chris Rock Went Wrong in His Oscars Monologue
In Monday’s Washington Post, Daniel Drezner praises Chris Rock’s opening monologue at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony as “genius.” In particular, he admires the way Rock made fun of and tamed the #OscarsSoWhite elephant in the room. But where Drezner sees the structure of Rock’s routine as a model for how politicians can criticize their own…
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Measuring Clout Among African Americans
For 2011 The Root set out to identify the most influential African Americans between 25 and 45 years of age. We defined influence broadly to include anyone who is shaping our daily conversations with work that matters. To identify and rank The Root 100, we developed a formula that defines influence as the marriage of…
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The Techies Are Wrong Again About Apple
In tech circles, the number 1 is feared and revered. A 1.0 release might install buggy, system-crashing software, or it might offer a thrilling glimpse of the future. When Apple launched the first iPad less than a year ago, many tech experts couldn’t “see a good use for the machine” and argued that “Apple’s iPad…
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It's Too Early for an iPad Backlash
In a widely retweeted comment, Wesley Chan, an investment partner on Google Ventures, wrote on Saturday that he was “very underwhelmed by the iPad [he] bought today. That said, 300 other people also waited to buy an oversized iPhone that can’t make calls.” Similarly, Jeff Jarvis, new-media supercritic and author of What Would Google Do? wrote on Sunday, “After having…
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The iPad Will Revolutionize Reading
Omar Wasow is an assistant professor in Princeton’s Department of Politics. His research focuses on race and politics, protest movements and statistical methods. Before joining the academy, Omar served as a regular on-air technology analyst and was co-founder of BlackPlanet.com. Follow him on Twitter.
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The Techies Are Wrong about the iPad
When the Apple iPad was announced in late January, techies across the Web carped endlessly about what was wrong. It lacked a camera. It couldn’t do videoconferencing. The bezel around the edge of the screen was too big. It wouldn’t support Flash video. Worst of all, the Holodeck option wasn’t truly immersive 3-D with full-on hot tub time-travel functionality.…
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Who Needs an iPad?
I confess that I was skeptical Apple could create a successful digital tablet when dozens of prior efforts, including those from Apple, have failed. Like some kind of tech holy grail, the future of tablet computing has always been full of promise and fully unrealized. The big question hanging over the iPad has been who’s…
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Why Michael Steele Is Wrong About Harry Reid
GOP Chairman Michael Steele and other leading Republicans have called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign for suggesting in 2008 that then-Sen. Barack Obama had better chances of winning the presidency because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect.” On Fox News Sunday, Steele said, “There is this standard where…
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Was Harry Reid Right?
CNN is aflutter. Bloggers are calling it a “big-time” mistake. Newspapers describe the “racially tinged” remarks as “sensational.” What is this “juicy revelation”? Apparently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately told two journalists in 2008 that Obama was more electable because he’s “light-skinned” and lacked a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” With…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
