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The Root 100 2011: Influencers and Iconoclasts
Beyoncé and Michelle Alexander: a pop superstar and a law professor. Kanye West and David Adjaye: a hip-hop icon and a “starchitect.” Tyra Banks and Touré: a supermodel-turned-entrepreneur and a political pundit who wants to redefine blackness. Welcome to the fascinating world of The Root 100, where the unusual juxtapositions are not accidental. They reflect…
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Watch Live at 7 p.m.: Morehouse Glee Club
At The Root we’re fans of Glee — HBCU style! The Morehouse College Glee Club will perform live at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the street-level studios of public radio stations WNYC and WQXR in New York City. The live stream will be carried on The Root this evening. The club is celebrating its…
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Swiss Bank Chief Resigns Over Rogue Trader's Losses
The aftershocks of a Swiss bank’s massive losses just keep coming. UBS’ chief executive, Oswald Grübel, suddenly resigned as chairman and CEO of UBS Saturday after a two-day meeting of the giant bank’s board and senior management in Singapore. The bank has been coping with a $2.3 billion loss by trader Kweku Adoboli, who apparently was able to…
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Why We Care So Much About Troy Davis
The state of Georgia killed Troy Davis last night. Usually such acts are routine in America. Last year 45 Americans were legally executed, about one a week, with time out for vacations and holidays. But a confluence of circumstances and organizations turned Davis’ cause into a global phenomenon, with pleas for mercy from such disparate…
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Noted Reverend on Troy Davis: 'Moral Disaster'
With the clock ticking loudly for Troy Davis, the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church conceded that Davis was running out of options. Warnock had visited with Davis on Monday, two days before the scheduled execution. “His faith is strong, his resolve is clear, he maintains his innocence,” said Warnock as he drove to…
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DSK Denies Using Force With Hotel Maid
After months of silence and a return home to Paris as a free man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn went before the cameras to offer — for the first time — his side of the story that derailed his political ambitions. The former IMF chief said that the encounter with Guinean Nafissatou Diallo was “consensual,” and he suggested…
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Did African Politicians Finance French Elections?
France has long trumpeted its close ties to Africa. French troops have not hesitated to jump in to support a favored despot. It appears that the favors went both ways. Robert Bourgi, a longtime adviser on African affairs for France, has declared that he delivered large sums of money from African leaders to top French…
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MLK, the Advice Columnist?
Martin Luther King Jr. was just making a name for himself when Ebony magazine asked him to pen a monthly advice column. Titled “Advice for Living,” King’s column ran between 1957 and 1958, reports Anna Holmes in the Washington Post. At the time, King was just starting to come to international prominence: In February 1957,…
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Uruguay Withdraws 5 UN Peacekeepers From Haiti
Uruguay has announced that it is withdrawing five peacekeepers from the U.N. military mission in Haiti in response to allegations that a Haitian teenager was sexually assaulted. A graphic video widely seen on the Internet shows several soldiers holding a young man down on a bed and laughing as he is allegedly assaulted. Uruguay is…
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Steve Stoute on Hip-Hop and Race Relations
Steve Stoute found startling evidence of the global influence of hip-hop in the mountaintop town of Èze in southern France. On the square of a village that boasts thousands of years of history, he saw a jewelry store named Bling. “Lil Wayne invented the word ‘bling’,” says Stoute, who has been an innovator in bringing…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
