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Exclusive: Janelle Monáe Is Trying to Be as Free and Open-Minded as Possible With Virtual Reality and Pandora
“When the world tells us that the very existence of us, or our skin color, could get us kicked out of Starbucks. When the world tells us that because of your skin color, the police can mistake your cellphone for a gun and you’re murdered, it’s important that I tell my story and I tell…
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Zazie Beetz Is the Only Thing That Matters in Deadpool 2
“I know white superheroes aren’t your thing,” The Root’s resident Suge Knight, also known as our deputy managing editor, Yesha Callahan, said to me as she tasked me with writing about Deadpool 2. No, white superheroes aren’t my thing, but Ryan Reynolds is my thing, and even more so, Zazie Beetz as freakin’ Domino! Marvel’s…
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Judge of Characters: Hello, 911? It’s Me, White America
What in the world happened this week? It seemed like racism was determined to show its casual and ugly face all over America with the terrible trend of #LivingWhileBlack. All of a sudden, black people are having the cops show up after someone white calls the cops because they’re afraid. These black folks have been…
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The Parent Trap: Is Being Nude in Front of Your Kids Free Expression or Overexposure?
Every mother does motherhood differently. There isn’t one way to do it right, but in the internet-run world in which we now live, apparently there are many ways to do it wrong. You know, because the internet is filled with judges and juries. Those ladies and gentlemen of the jury recently gathered in order to…
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The 2018 BET Awards Nominees Are …
Does it look like I was left off “Bad and Boujee”? Seems like it was forever ago, but it was just last year at the BET Awards red carpet that hip-hop trio Migos sat or, uhm, stood with Complex’s Everyday Struggle hosts DJ Akademiks, Nadeska Alexis and (*cough* former host) Joe Budden, thus creating a…
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Bad Publicity Only Works for the Kardashians
In case you haven’t heard, no one showed up to Kanye West’s Yeezy X 2XU event in Sydney. First of all, I didn’t even know this was happening or a thing; nor do I know who or what a 2XU is. If I know anything about Kanye, I figure that this is a fashion collaboration…
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Ava DuVernay Has a Mother’s Day Gift for Us All: A Wrinkle in Time Will Be Rereleased for Mother’s Day Weekend!
“Ava’s looking forward to speaking with you,” one of Array’s publicists said via the phone. (Array is Ava DuVernay’s grassroots distribution, arts and advocacy collective focused on films by people of color and women.) I smiled harder than necessary at the publicist’s statement, since I was the only one in the room and on the…
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Judge of Characters: Black Men, White Wives … This Is America
Donald Glover basically broke the internet when he released his video for “This Is America,” a disturbing visual with enough interpretable art all up and through it. Even the biggest art intellectual likely needed to go back and watch it 47 times. I know I did. But that’s a testament to good art, right? You…
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Black Mamas Work: 6 Career-Driven Moms Share Their Messy Lessons, Wins and Fears of Raising Black Kids
Part of being a mother is accepting that you have to be a list of things your children are in constant need of: a counselor, a doctor, a cheerleader, a coach, a manager, a Band-Aid … the list goes on. The job is endless and often, thankless. But a mother’s job is often not just…
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Dear White People Vol. 2 Digs Deeper Into Modern-Day Segregation, Microaggressions, Twitter Trolls and More
There’s something so refreshing about entertainment that tackles larger issues within the black community. Getting to see black people live out their full lives, all while staring down racism, microaggressions, police brutality, modern-day segregation, biracial identity, sexual identity, abortion and more, is something that’s becoming far less foreign. Netflix’s Dear White People has returned with…
