Clapback/Mailbag

Today’s mailbag is dedicated to the people who are laughed at, made fun of and dismissed as a joke. Every day, the entire staff at The Root engages in a brutal act of bullying against certain members of our team. It’s becoming institutional and I’m tired of it. Whenever any person suggests that we cover…

In light of this global pandemic, we’ve decided to come forward and admit that our claim that we respond to our readers’ correspondences each Friday may not be 100 percent accurate. After carefully contemplating this issue, we must admit that we have led you to believe a lie. For the sake of transparency, you should…

Each week, as I read the emails, tweets, DMs and comments for Friday’s Clapback Mailbag, I find something that makes me think: “This person is gonna look really stupid in the flashback.” Wait, you don’t think about your future flashbacks? I live my life as if I were a hero in a movie. In every…

Y’all won. Every week, as I prepare for the Mailbag, there’s always at least one very angry white person asking why I blame racists instead of calling out my own people. So this week, I decided to do that. This week, I decided to highlight anti-black black people who are so enamored with whiteness that…

The Root hates Bernie Sanders. The Root loves Bernie Sanders. Neither one of those things is true but, depending on which candidate you support, you either think The Root is actively trying to sabotage your candidate by painting them as a racist or we are selling out for Joe Biden. Or maybe it’s Elizabeth Warren.…

A wise man (I think it was Rakim…or maybe my cousin Geet) once said: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Whoever said this was obviously not a regular reader of the Friday mailbag. If they were, they’d know that scoundrels have a variety of refuges, including: “Yo’ Mama”: The last refuge of child…

Every Friday, we clap back at hateful emails, tweets, DMs and comments from our readers. But, since today is the day when we celebrate romance, I thought we should respond to some of our emails that were about love. Unfortunately, there were none. So, we’ll just do what we usually do. Our first letter is…

My fellow Americans, I come before you today with good news. For nearly three years, we have addressed our readers’ emails, DMs, tweets, and comments in the weekly Mailbag. And in all those times, I have never shied away from an opportunity to clap back at my haters. But this is not Michael Harriot’s Clapback…

We interrupt our usual clapback session for a very special Mailbag. I am often asked why my writings don’t contain more solutions. Instead of complaining about racism, I guess I’m supposed to fix white people. It’s like robbing someone and then telling them to stop complaining about their money problems and work harder. But I’m…

In 1951, the great American poet Langston Hughes, in his poem, “Harlem,” asked: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore—And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load. Or does…