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La La Anthony: 'Proud to Be Black. Proud to Be Puerto Rican'
“I’m Black and that’s what Afro-Latina means to me.” — La La Anthony, Actor text For actor La La Anthony, there is no separating her Blackness from her identity. After all, the Black and Puerto Rican actor knew from the outset that she was just that—Black and Puerto Rican. In her career, the Power star…
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Gone but Not Forgotten: How This Black Woman Is Carrying on the Legacy of Her Great-Grandfather and Black Wall Street
I think there’s absolutely the potential to create another Black Wall Street. I also think it’s important to support Black-owned businesses, as well as to remove our spending from corporations that only exploit us as customers. — Raven Majia Williams, founder, A.J. Smitherman Foundation text Imagine a thriving Black community with its own hospitals, schools,…
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'I Am a Descendent From People Who Have Interrupted Empire': Afro-Indigenous Poet Alán Pelaez Lopez Explores the Beauty of Radical Blackness in La Negritud
“Being a Black person means that you’re always having to build worlds. The world that one inhabits as a Black person, primarily in a colonized country—it’s a world that necessitates our elimination.” — Alán Pelaez Lopez text Growing up, Alán Pelaez Lopez always knew that they were indigenous—but, the Oaxaca, Mexico-native didn’t realize that they…
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The Big Bounce Back: Hurricane Katrina Devastated Black New Orleans, but Bounce Music Helped Revive the City
“When we came back [to New Orleans], everything was all messed up. But over time, and everybody coming together—community efforts—we rebuilt New Orleans. The people have to the keep the spirit and the culture alive.” — Big Freedia, musical artist text Bounce music is the heartbeat of New Orleans. The musical genre emerged in the…
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'Our Activism Has to Have Legs': Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Monique Judge and Chloë Cheyenne Say That Movement Building Must Go Beyond Social Media
The 2020 uprisings have proven that “the revolution” has gone far beyond being televised. This moment of racial reckoning has taken the world by storm—the “revolution” is broadcasted on television, in the streets, on our phones and online. No doubt social media has impacted movement work. Activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham reminds us that while the…
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Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Monique Judge and Chloë Cheyenne Unpack Movement Work in Social Media at The Root Institute
Where, exactly, does social media and movement building intersect? As ‘me too.’ movement founder, Tarana Burke, reminded us in an earlier Root Institute panel, movements are strategic and require long-term planning. Make no mistake: Movements don’t happen by osmosis. But, with the advent of social media, there is an ease with which communities are able…
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Beyond the Buzz: Vernā Myers and Reggie Van Lee Chat Diversity and Inclusion at The Root Institute
“There are some real difficult experiences that people have lived through because of the ‘-isms’ and because of white supremacy. And yet we need to find our bridge to one another.” —Vernā Myers, vice president of inclusion strategy, Netflix text Diversity and inclusion is all of the talk in corporate America, but how does one…
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Master P Reflects on Becoming His Own 'Master' and Working With Tupac
“I’m constantly trying to educate myself. I’m constantly trying to master whatever I do.” — Percy “Master P” Miller text Master P is indeed a boss. The ex-rapper, actor, record label executive and former NBA player came to prominence in the 1990s and 2000s, but as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. In…
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Black Major League Soccer Players Speak Out in Documentary Protesting Racial Injustice
As evidenced by the 2020 uprisings, it is imperative that we take a stand against racial injustice. Across the country (and the world, for that matter), we are seeing civilians, celebrities and corporations (though we question the intentions of some of these companies) emphatically say “Black lives matter.” Given the long history of Black athletes…
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'Democracy Is at Stake': Glynda Carr, Judith Browne Dianis and Rashad Robinson on Wielding Black Political Power at The Root Institute
“Our lives are at stake. We’re in the midst of a pandemic, a health crisis. Black people are disproportionately dying, but [are] also sick. What we’ve seen because of this pandemic is that it has exposed the structural racism that we knew existed before, but other people didn’t know…We have an opportunity, in this election,…