Opinion
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10 Worthwhile Hobbies For These Bored Billionaires Who So Obviously Need Them
1. Cross-country road trips, where they drive to different states just to hunt and eat other rich people. 2. Provide funding for a commercial airline where the people who stand when the plane first lands are immediately ejected from it, shot into the atmosphere, and melted by the sun. 3. Go to the moon, and…
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Is the Top of the Refrigerator a Shelf? A Black Supreme Court Decision
As appointees to the Black Supreme Court, we are often called upon to settle the difficult issues of our time. Over the past two years, this court has found itself smack dab in the center of some of the most contentious cultural debates including: Which one is the Big Joker? Can Donald Trump read? Who…
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The Keynote Address From #BeckyCon2019
Today, the hashtag #BeckyCon2019 exploded on Twitter. It began when whistleblower Gail Simone noticed a blatant expression of white privilege on a plane, and recognized a conference attendee traveling to the inaugural conference. A joint effort between the Hallmark Channel and Oil of Olay, #BeckyCon2019 is a gathering of sundry white women seeking more information…
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I Will Never Forgive America for Trying to Convince Me That Richard Spencer Is ‘Dapper’
The pathologically un-rewatchable Joker has become the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history, surpassing Deadpool 2. I am not surprised by this, as the audience for depictions of maladjusted and sexually frustrated white men finding catharsis in violence is, well, bottomless. Add a mundane mythos, a late-’70s/early-’80s NYC aesthetic, a refried casserole of important seeming themes…
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Like Whiteness for Chocolate: Teacher Suspended for Dressing Up as Rapper Common, Complete With Blackface
Just when you thought blackface had been relegated to old college yearbooks, a California teacher provided the latest proof of white superiority—at least in the field of “trying it”—after he wore blackface in the classroom to buttress the bona fides of his Halloween costume. On Oct. 31, Milpitas High School teacher David Carter decided to…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Smile, Bih.
It has been a tough week here at The Root and all of G/O Media. First of all, I discovered that many of my co-workers here are fans of candy corn and putting sugar on their grits (which is kind of the same thing because sugar grits are technically candy corn). Later in the week,…
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How Black Flint Residents Are Fighting the Water Crisis Despite Government Inaction
“They want Flint to die.” —Liberty Bell text Walking around Flint, Mich., the epicenter of one of America’s most prominent self-inflicted environmental tragedies, residents feel that its water crisis was purposefully allowed to happen. State officials, from the former GOP governor on down, are letting the mostly black city suffer through lead-laced water as a…
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: The White Fragility Workout Plan
I feel sorry for white people. I can’t imagine having all of that responsibility. First of all, protecting white supremacy is a full-time job, in and of itself. Then, they have to find time to create and spread fictional narratives among themselves. How they managed to explain poverty, educational inequality and black unemployment by inventing…
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Southern Mayors: The South Has Something to Say About the 2020 Elections
Twenty-four years ago, a talented, young duo from Atlanta was booed as they received a Source Award for “Best New Rap Group.” A then-20-year-old André Benjamin overcame his emotions to make a bold declaration that forever changed hip-hop: “The South got something to say.” That talented group was Outkast. And they indeed said a lot…
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Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination Is a Civil Rights Issue: Why Black People Need to Get Behind Title VII
This month, the Supreme Court heard arguments around a case that could transform how businesses across the country handle anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Anyone who purports to care about the black community should be concerned about efforts to ensure equal protection under the law to black LGBTQ+ people, including efforts to question the application of Title VII…