-
'Harriet Tubman Sex Tape': Rape Is No Joke
(The Root) — Just typing out the words seems like a betrayal: “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape.” It’s as bizarre and brutal as a sudden slap in the face. A spoof about a real-life American superhero voluntarily reducing herself to the antics of every other reality-show airhead? And someone thought this was “hilarious”? That someone happened…
-
Gwen Ifill: Making News of Her Own
(The Root) — In 1999, journalist Gwen Ifill, then a congressional and political correspondent for NBC News, told the New York Times that she was “part terrified, part excited as you always are when you try something new.” She was talking about her new post as moderator of PBS’ Washington Week in Review. Now nearly…
-
'Fruitvale Station': Too Difficult to Watch?
(The Root) — “I just don’t think I’m ready,” explained a friend as we discussed possible plans to go see Fruitvale Station, the critically acclaimed film that depicts the final 24 hours of 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s life. On New Year’s Day 2009, the unarmed and handcuffed Grant was shot and killed by a transit-police officer…
-
Start With the Man in the Mirror, Don Lemon
(The Root) — Buried beneath the ever-growing pile of rubble that is the negative reaction to CNN anchor Don Lemon’s “tough love” comments about the black community was the excellent rebuttal by Global Grind’s editor-in-chief, Michael Skolnik. “It’s a reflection, it’s a mirror,” said Skolnik when asked by Lemon if rap and hip-hop “glorify prison…
-
Delta at 100: Celebration, Reflection
(The Root) — Last weekend the weather in Washington, D.C., was unpredictable. One minute the sun would be shining and the clouds kept at bay, and then suddenly that once-optimistic sky would tip over, pouring out all the rain. The same can be said of the shifting mood among the more than 50,000 members of…
-
Jason Collins' Ex Speaks Out
(The Root) — Last April, NBA veteran Jason Collins publicly announced that he was gay in what many supporters — myself and President Barack Obama included — heralded as a courageous leap in the right direction. Coming from the first openly gay male athlete on a major professional team, Collins’ deeply personal essay in Sports…
-
Finally, Equal Rights for My Lesbian Mother
(The Root) — When I heard the news that morning, it whacked me in the chest like the kickback of a sudden and screeching stop. On Wednesday, June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. No longer would a legally married, same-sex couple be denied federal benefits…
-
BET's 'Being Mary Jane': Relatable
(The Root) — I had coffee with Mara Brock Akil years ago. I was in Los Angeles “taking meetings” about the possibility of optioning the rights to my book to a production company. When my agent asked whose work in Hollywood I trusted — not just admired — the most, Mara’s name flew out of…
-
Paula Deen and Serena: 2 of a Kind
(The Root) — If she who is without sin should cast the first stone, then perhaps she who is with sin should just shut up, taking her rock and heading home before the walls come crumbling down around her. Nowhere does this modern twist on the oft-quoted Bible verse seem more apt than in the…
-
Absent Dads Make Girls Into Sluts? Come On
At xoJane, Helena Andrews, a contributing editor at The Root, rejects the idea that an absent father makes for a promiscuous daughter. She disagrees with a Texas Christian University study that came to that controversial conclusion. Obviously the study and research and so forth are all sort of bogus, as most of the smart women who analyzed…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
