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Watch: Women at Work: This First Lady Redefines the Role
Editor’s note: For Women’s History Month, The Root is celebrating women from a wide range of professional industries in our video series Women at Work. “People expect women to be a certain way. They expect black women to be a certain way,” says Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. “You…
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Watch: Women at Work: ‘We’re Playing the Game, but at a Different Angle’
Editor’s note: For Women’s History Month, The Root is celebrating women from a wide range of professional industries in our video series Women at Work. Ariel Lopez and Janel Martinez are two Afro-Latinx millennials living in the Bronx, N.Y. And they’re techies, too. “I think tech is the most important industry. It is the lifeline…
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Watch: Michael Eric Dyson Explains How Having White Skin Is the Biggest Handout in History
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America is Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson’s 20th book—and it was his most difficult to write. Inspired by a July 2016 New York Times essay responding to the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Dyson uses Tears We Cannot Stop as an opportunity to…
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Watch: Ava DuVernay on 13th, Her Life's Work and Magnifying the Beauty of Black People
Some might call Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th prophetic. In just over 90 minutes, DuVernay traces the decisions, going as far back as the end of slavery, that led to the creation of the monstrosity known as the prison-industrial complex—and, thus, explains how it is that modern-day slavery exists. Telling the stories of black and brown…
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Have a Very Obama Christmas
The holidays are here, and we’re gushing over the Obamas. C’mon, it’s the end of the year, and people tend to get reflective around this time. Don’t judge. Still, the first family, the first black first family, for the past eight years have lived in a house built by slaves and have represented this country…
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Watch: The Root Staff Executes the Battle of the Fruitcakes
The holidays are here, and what would the holidays be without fruitcake? For many, the answer would be “a time to share love with friends and family, just without a fruitcake.” Touché. Still, here at The Root, we acknowledge that to some, fruitcake is a tradition. So The Root staff decided to put this Christmas…
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Mykelti Williamson on Fences, Acting While Black and the Power of the Mind
When you’ve been handpicked by Denzel Washington to sign on to a multimillion-dollar film that he’s directing, you know you’re doing something right. And for actor and director Mykelti Williamson, who plays Gabriel in Washington’s rendition of Fences, this is indeed the case. It’s safe to say that as a director, Washington was judicious in…
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Watch: Trevor Noah on South African Apartheid, American Racism and What He Hopes to Offer the World
At the time he was born, Trevor Noah’s mere existence was a crime. The South African native grew up during apartheid—a bleak period in the nation’s past underscored by a white supremacist system intended to segregate and oppress the country’s nonwhite population. It was illegal for interracial couples to have intercourse. To say that Noah,…
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Watch: Baron Davis and the Black Santa Co. Deliver Melanin This Christmas
Move over, Kris Kringle; there is a new Santa in town. And he’s black. Founded by former NBA player Baron Davis, the Black Santa Co. hopes to offer a black hero, a figure for children to look up to. This Santa is not to be confused with Nas’ black kneeling Santa or Larry Jefferson, the…
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Kicks Off Its Holiday Season With Solange and Jazz
Singer, songwriter and activist Solange Knowles has another notch on her belt: honorary chairwoman of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. And after having a “fan girl” moment (as Solange referred to it) with dance royalty Judith Jamison, the Seat at the Table artist addressed the New York City Center audience, who came to witness…
