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Idiot Teacher Asked 4th-Graders to ‘Give 3 Good Reasons for Slavery’
I think it was the esteemed Founding Father Benjamin Franklin who once wrote, “Nothing in this world can be said to be certain except death, taxes and white people white-peopleing.” I may have added the last part, but it is definitely true. What else could explain a teacher asking a fourth-grade class to give three…
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Meet the White Nationalist Running for Congress in Pennsylvania
Apparently unaware of Steve King, Stephen Scalise, Steve Bannon and other Republican Party Steves who are racist as shit, a candidate for the House of Representatives has threatened to bow out of an upcoming Republican forum if a white supremacist running for the same congressional seat is allowed to attend. Andrew Lewis, a candidate for…
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Why Is the Media Afraid to Call Matthew Riehl a Racist, Anti-Cop Terrorist?
He was a racist and a terrorist. He was an Islamophobe. He spread white supremacist memes. He used the terminology of the “alt-right.” He called Barack Obama a “lying piece of shit.” You probably have no idea who I’m talking about, because when Matthew Riehl fired more than 100 bullets at Douglas County, Colo., sheriff’s…
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We Need to Talk About the Teddy Pendergrass Kwanzaa Carol
[This post originally ran on Dec. 30, 2017.] If you’re reading this, it’s too late. I’m pretty sure I’m either dead, in “the upside down” or caught in some existential interdimensional prank show hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. This can’t be real life. Someone should call up Willie D or Scarface, because I think I…
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The 2017 Kwanzaa Week Gift Guide
… On the fifth day of Kwanzaa, P-Nut gave to meeeee: Fiiive keeeente clooooths! Four calling cards, three French braids, 20-inch dubs and an African print dashikiiii! Pardon me, I was just practicing my Kwanzaa carols. But this does raise an important question about Kwanzaa. In our quest to #MakeKwanzaaGreatAgain, have we overlooked an important…
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Watch: ‘Make Kwanzaa Great Again’ Campaign Video
[This post originally ran on Dec. 26, 2017.] Many people have wondered why Kwanzaa is not a bigger holiday or why it is overshadowed by Christmas every year (and when we say “many people,” like our esteemed president, we mean four … maybe five, tops). In response, we decided to celebrate Kwanzaa Week by pouring…
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Umar Johnson Announces He’s Under Investigation for Hotep Hogwarts
It be your own negus. World-renowned Hotepologist and miseducator (Dr.?) Umar Johnson has threatened to refund the money he collected for the Invisible Frederick Douglass Dashiki Institute for Black Boys and go back to the Motherland after someone snitched on him to Pennsylvania’s State Board of Psychology, triggering an investigation. On Thursday Johnson posted an…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Insert Clever Title Here
Yesterday, Deputy Managing Editor Yesha Callahan told me, and I quote: “No one wants to wait around for the mailbag tomorrow … and by ‘no one,’ I mean me.” Fine, then. So I guess I won’t write an intro. This lede was gonna be funny as hell, too. I was going to explain how this…
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New Zora Neale Hurston Book Will Tell Story of the Last Survivor of the US Slave Trade
Eighty-one years after Their Eyes Were Watching God debuted, a new work by Zora Neale Hurston will appear on bookshelves. In 2018, publisher HarperCollins will release Hurston’s account of the last-known survivor of the American holocaust known as the U.S. slave trade. In 1931, Hurston spent three months in Alabama interviewing Cudjo Lewis, who came…
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Nah, White Women … You Can’t Have This One
In the aftermath of black people showing up out of nowhere—like little Kenard who snuffed out Omar on The Wire—to kill Roy Moore and the “alt-right’s” dream of making the documentary Mr. Molester Goes to Washington, everyone wants a little bit of credit. The Democratic Party is saying, “I told y’all.” The pundits are giving…
