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Why Black People Are Being Left Out of the Weed Boom
Editor’s note: This is part 2 in an ongoing series that looks at the growing legal marijuana industry and its effect on the black community. Zulu, a Maryland resident who calls himself the African Herbalist, sells marijuana on the black market. The 32-year-old is using a pseudonym to avoid being picked up for breaking the law…
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Where Recreational Marijuana Is Legal, Should Those in Prison for Weed Crimes Get a Puff, Puff, Pass?
Editor’s note: This is the first article in an ongoing series that looks at the growing legal marijuana industry and its effect on the black community. Twenty years ago, Rico Garcia was 21 when he got caught up in a marijuana sting in Colorado with a friend who wanted to buy some weed. The seller…
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Take the Shot: Adults Need Vaccinations, Too
Nearly all of us remember suffering through multiple vaccinations as children, for everything from the measles and polio to those painful tetanus inoculations. But medical experts are warning that older adults, particularly African Americans and Latinos, are disproportionately at risk for preventable illnesses because they are not getting vaccines themselves. “I’m urging all adults, especially…
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Rising Above a Disability Through a Comic Book
In March of 2009, David Rector suffered a series of horrific medical crises. The former NPR producer, with a voice like black velvet caressing your skin, lost the ability to speak—or walk. He was virtually comatose for two weeks. But a friend suggested using Rector’s encyclopedic knowledge and love of comic books—especially D.C. Comic’s Superman…
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212 Slaves Died on the São José Ship; This New Exhibit Will Share Their Story
Paul Gardullo lifted an iron ballast from a Portuguese slave ship that sank in 1794 out of a crate Wednesday morning and hefted its weight in his hands. “Anytime I come into contact with the objects from the São José, it’s an incredibly moving experience,” said the curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American…
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Beyond Carnival: This Caribbean Cruise Helps People of Color
Lynda and Harry Taylor of Palmdale, Calif., stood under a thatched roof in El Cupey, surrounded by smiling Dominicans and their children. They’d just finished helping teach people in this mountain village in the Dominican Republic to speak English—a skill that’s vital to their chances of getting a job in a nation where 40 percent…
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Living With Sickle Cell: ‘I Don’t Know What It Means to Be Without Pain’
Nikki Peterson, like approximately 100,000 other Americans, was born with sickle cell anemia. The 43-year-old lives in Upper Marlboro, Md., and ends up in the hospital about four times during what she calls a good year. Once a month, she undergoes a grueling process called hemapheresis. All of the blood is removed from her body,…
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We Are Charleston: The Mother Emanuel Church Shooting a Year Later
Forgiveness. It was the main thing that stuck out, and one of the few things outsiders didn’t understand about Charleston, S.C., last year. How could so many who’d lost so much forgive then-21-year-old Dylann Roof after he allegedly shot and killed nine African-American worshippers during Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church? Only five people survived…
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‘All I Could Do Was Cry’: LGBTQ Muslims React to the Orlando, Fla., Massacre
“All I could do was cry,” says Sadiya Abjani. “Cry for my dead community members, cry for the future of my Muslim community, cry for my friends and chosen family who are about to live the next few months constantly looking over their shoulders.” Abjani, a queer Ismaili Muslim in New York, is describing her…
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How to Get Away With Murder: A Story of Grief, Apathy and Gun Violence in the African-American Community
Ken McClenton is a grieving father whose family is getting by on faith. His daughter, Charnice Milton, was killed last year in Southeast Washington, D.C., while she was changing buses on her way home from work. “We are persevering in the midst of our loss,” McClenton tells The Root. “You never get fully over the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
