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Gap Apologizes for Racially Charged GapKids x ED Ad
Gap has issued an apology for a racially charged ad that drew fiery backlash on social media over the weekend. As previously reported by The Root, Ellen DeGeneres and GapKids partnered for activewear line GapKids x ED, and the line’s campaign launched with an ad featuring four girls from Le Petit Cirque—three white and one…
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The Price on Our Heads: New GapKids Ad Sparks Racially Charged Controversy
Editor’s note: This article contains social media posts that some may find offensive. But it was the scene in its entirety that, perhaps, troubled me the most. The degrading pain being inflicted upon the young black woman while everyone looked on, unwilling to interfere, serves as a prescient illustration of how black women and girls…
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Donald Trump: He Was Made in America
Donald Trump continues his march to the Republican presidential nomination, spurred on by tapping into the racist paranoia of white conservatives all across the country who have found in him a leader who gives voice to their base nature. As the inevitable drum beats, many white liberals have basked in their own sanctimonious outrage that…
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Bernie Sanders’ ‘Ghetto’ Gaffe Gave Clinton Supporters the Ammunition They Needed
Before the Democratic debate in Flint, Mich., Sunday, critics of presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that he didn’t have an intersectional, socioeconomic racial analysis. But after his triggering use of the loaded words “ghetto” and “poor” when answering a question about his “racial blind spots” posed by CNN’s Don Lemon, many of those same critics now…
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Can a Radical Black Movement Find a Place in the Democratic Party?
As Democrats square off over the electability of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders, questions about the future of the Democratic Party continue to rise to the surface. Though numerous reports show Sanders as the most likely to beat Donald Trump in a general election, there are some Clinton supporters who continue to preach of…
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The Red or the Blue Pill? When Black Voters Refuse to Get High on Political Promises
In the midst of the two-party, seemingly now two-candidate, political brawl this country finds itself engaged in, there are young black voters who are saying no to politics as usual, no to a Democratic Party that has morphed into a moderate Republican Party, and no to a Republican Party that believes in big government only…
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All Skinfolk Ain’t Kinfolk: A Few Words on Ben Carson, Magical Negro
Ben Carson wants us to know that he’s a black man, unlike President Barack Obama. He needs voters, white voters in particular, to know that he’s the kind of Magical Negro who waved his belt buckle, attacked his friend and his mother, then prayed to white Jesus to get him out of the “ghetto.” In a…
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Nev. Democratic Party at Fault for ‘English Only’ Controversy
After legendary human rights and political activist—and longtime Hillary Clinton supporter—Dolores Huerta was silenced while attempting to provide English-to-Spanish translation services Saturday at a Las Vegas Democratic caucus gathering at Harrah’s Casino, the hashtag #EnglishOnly swiftly began trending online, and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) found themselves playing defense across social media. “The Bernie organizers…
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Call a Thing a Thing: Scalia’s Judicial Terrorism Should Not Be Celebrated
Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia was racist, charismatic, misogynist, intelligent, homoantagonistic, witty, a good friend and a judicial terrorist. He was all these things, multifaceted in the ways that all human beings are, and he should be remembered as such. Still, in the days since his death, the communities he attacked viciously with his decisions over the course…
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My Son Has Autism, and He’s Perfect the Way He Is
I watched her closely as she watched my 3-year-old son, who hadn’t looked her in the eye one time in the past hour. I saw when her brow furrowed, when she looked pensively at her notes and back up. I urgently pointed out when he did something that I wanted her, needed her to be…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
