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Everything You've Been Told About Botham Jean is Wrong
Come. Let me show you something. Let me show you what it is to be black. To be forever erased from the realm of the living with a bang and a puff of smoke. To disappear silently into an empty void or, even worse, to have your death dissected in a desperate futile search for…
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There's a New Report on Black America's Digital Habits and I Have Some Questions
A new report from Nielsen—the global analytics and data company that lets me know that in the year of our Lord and Savior, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, black people are still out here watching the NFL—has revealed some very interesting things about the digital lives of black America. From Consumers to Creators: The Digital Lives of…
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This Donald Trump Story Reveals the True Power of Whiteness
Buried among the mountain of tales in Bob Woodward’s excavation of Donald Trump’s Hogwarts Acadamy for Grand Wizards, is a story that reveals the ineptitude of Donald Trump and the brazen supremacy of whiteness. According to Business Insider, Woodward’s new book, Fear, contains an anecdote about Donald Trump that boggles the mind. It details a…
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The NRA is So Mad About Thomas the Tank Engine's Black Friends, They Put a KKK Hood on Him
Although I would probably find it difficult to digest poultry seasoned with thoughts and prayers and couldn’t imagine preferring guitar solos to bass-infused musical breakdowns, I must confess that there is one part of caucasity that I found undeniably attractive: The ability to care about white nonsense. Their superior ability to conjure up white tears…
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Why the Serena Williams Cartoon is Racist, Sexist Trash, Explained
When cartoonist Mark Knight tweeted an image of his cartoon depicting Serena Williams’ disagreement with Umpire Carlos Ramos in the Finals of the U.S. Open, he responded to the public criticisms of racism by asserting that “it had nothing to do with gender or race,” according to Melbourne Australia’s Herald Sun. “The cartoon about Serena…
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Louisiana Teacher Makes Racist Facebook Post but It's OK, She's No Longer Employed: [Updated]
Instead of posting a meme on Black Twitter, a Louisiana high school teacher took to White Facebook to offer her well-thought-out solutions for some of America’s toughest challenges by suggesting that you-know-who “quit acting like animals” and cease “voting for handouts and pay taxes.” There. She fixed it for you. Valerie Scogin, a high school…
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Did 2 White Fraternities Go Too Far Dissing an HBCU? [Corrected]
After a historic weekend where one of the country’s perennial football powerhouses welcomed a nearby historically black university, African American alumni from both colleges are incensed by viral pictures showing white fraternity houses draped in signs that are insensitive at best and racist at worst, disparaging the nearby HBCU. I believe it was the indomitable…
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America’s Biggest Conspiracy Theory Is Real: The Racist Truth Behind the Myth of Voter Fraud
Whether it is Benghazi, birth certificates, Bigfoot, the Illuminati or an unseen VHS tape of Russian sex workers emptying vodka-filled bladders onto a marmalade-colored man who would eventually become the president of the United States, America loves a good conspiracy theory. Anna Merlan, a reporter at Gizmodo Media Group’s special projects desk and author of…
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White Boycotts Don’t Work: How Nike Secured the Bag By Supporting Colin Kaepernick
As people more concerned with respecting inanimate objects and 200-year-old songs than the actual lives of black people continue to express their discontent with Nike’s support of Colin Kaepernick by setting their shoes on fire, everyone wondered how the boycott against Nike would affect the company’s bottom line. Everyone but me, that is. Even after…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Feeding the Trolls
I can tell when I’m being trolled. I know I’m not supposed to feed them but sometimes I have to let people know that I’m not as gullible as they think I am. Take The Root’s News Editor Breanna Edwards for instance. Even before I started working at The Root, I knew she wasn’t real.…
