Opinion
Opinion
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Why I Decided to Become a Black Conservative
A few months ago, The Root began a series of stories under the name “I Tried It,” chronicling the experiences of writers who were willing to step outside their comfort zones to try things they normally wouldn’t consider. Some were incredibly adventurous, like senior reporter Terrell Jermaine Starr’s visit to one of the most radioactive…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: #Facts
Today’s mailbag is long, so the intro will be short. This week’s roundup of emails, comments, tweets and direct messages comes from white people who aren’t racist; they just want the writers at The Root to stick to facts. For insight, we collected a few of the people who set aside their disdain for our…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: My Apology
Yesterday, after discovering that the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Isaiah Thomas, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Channing Iman Shumpert, Jae Crowder, Winston Churchill and Jesus H. Christ for a half-eaten bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, in a failed attempt to make a joke, I suggested that I was leaving The Root: It was a joke, but the…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Racists and White Jesus Need to Step Up Their Game
Hey, look, guys, I need to admit something: This whole mailbag thing may have been a bad idea. When we started this, it seemed like a grand plan to expose the various kinds of hate mail, tweets and comments the writers at The Root receive on a daily basis. It also gave us an outlet…
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I Toured One of the Most Radioactive Places on Earth
It’s 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, and I’m sitting in a white minivan at Kiev, Ukraine’s central train station waiting to visit Chernobyl, where the world’s most catastrophic nuclear incident took place in 1986. I’ve been visiting Kiev every three months since 2008, but I’ve never been to Chernobyl, just two hours north of…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The Art of the Last-Minute Clapback
Each Thursday I wade through all the mean emails, tweets, comments and direct messages sent to the writers at The Root and find the ones that warrant a response. I examine them for white tears, anger and racism and formulate a response in my head. Then I look at my computer and say: “I’ll do…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: A Basket of Horribles
I am currently suffering from the flu and feel like I’m going to die. But because of my dedication to the readers of The Root, I crawled out of bed to respond to a few emails, tweets, comments and direct messages we receive during the week. (And because, when I told my editor, Yesha Callahan,…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The Last Hotep
If you enjoy our weekly roundup of emails, tweets, direct messages, comments and that one voicemail we did months ago, you probably won’t like this edition of the Clapback Mailbag. You might not even recognize it. While it will be chock-full of clapbacks as usual, this week’s mailbag marks the first time no white supremacist…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: It’s OK to Be Butt-Hurt
Today’s mailbag is dedicated to Tucker Carlson, Fox News and all the white people around the world who believe that The Root is racist. Your claims have been overlooked for too long. They make movies about make-believe stuff like Santa Claus, Bigfoot and Caucasians who can dance, but never took the time to address your…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Cusswords, Awards and Our Old Friend Umar
It seems like only yesterday that we began highlighting the emails, tweets, comments and messages from our readers. As we close out 2017, we would like to thank our haters because we don’t know where we’d be without you. (Actually, we do know where we’d be without you. We’d be fractionally happier, I’d probably have…