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2 Men—1 Black, 1 White—Commit Same Crime. Guess Which One Ended Up Dead?
Police aren’t racist. Critics of the Black Lives Matter movement believe this despite data from police departments in New York, Kansas City and San Francisco (pdf) showing that cops are more likely to stop black citizens. Those who make deities of anyone in uniform believe in the infallibility of the badge despite the numbers that…
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How Much Is a Black Life Worth? We Calculated It
This week, Philando Castile’s family was awarded $3 million to settle a civil wrongful death lawsuit against the tiny township of St. Anthony, Minn. A week earlier, CNN reports, the family of Mike Brown reportedly received $1.5 million from the city of Ferguson, Mo., in the 2015 death of the 18-year old. It seems like…
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Jay-Z’s 4:44 Is the 1st Grown-Ass Hip-Hop Album
I’m a grown-ass, 40-year-old dad, so there are certain things I cannot do. I will never again eat at Chuck E. Cheese unless I want to end up on an episode of To Catch a Predator, but I’m also not old enough to eat at the Golden Corral. I can’t spend $200 on Jordans or wear…
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Stupid or Liars? James O’Keefe’s Van Jones Hoax Raises an Important Question
Have you ever played the game “stupid or liar”? It was created by podcaster Adam Corolla. The premise is that whenever someone says something that is blatantly false, you must figure out if he or she is either incredibly stupid or a bald-faced liar. Like when your boyfriend tells you he has no idea who…
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Becky of the Year Candidate: White Woman Says Sexism in Hollywood Is Like Racism
May I present to you the latest nominee for The Root’s annual Wypipo Awards, in the category of Becky of the Year: Emilia Clarke. Please don’t hate me for reducing a human being to the title of “white woman.” This story is about the woman who plays Daenerys Targaryen. Even though I am the biggest…
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Facebook Will Ban You for Talking About White Men. Black Children and Muslims? Not So Much
Pop quiz: Which group is protected by Facebook’s secret censorship algorithm? a. Female drivers b. Black children c. White men The correct answer is c. That’s not hyperbolic conjecture meant to incite a reactionary response. These are actual choices Facebook used to train the thousands of censors responsible for regulating hate speech on the site.…
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Trinity College Suspends Professor After He Is Forced to Flee the State for Scaring the Whites
Trinity College placed a college professor on leave after his social media posts caused an uproar that shut down the bucolic Hartford, Conn., campus last week. There are only two rules by which every American must abide: Don’t fry bacon in the nude. Don’t scare the whites. If you ever want to be marginalized, ridiculed…
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Is Airbnb Turning NYC’s Brooklyn White? Airbnb Responds
Editor’s note: A quote by Murray Cox has been added to provide full context. Updated Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 1:38 p.m. EDT: On Monday The Root published this original article, which used data to argue that the home-sharing company Airbnb is being used as a tool for gentrification in Brooklyn, N.Y. After the article was…
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We Need to Talk About Eric Trump’s New Nazi Haircut
This weekend Eric Trump, the jawline-less son of our tweeter in chief, debuted a new haircut. The Twitterverse immediately recognized the style from Richard Spencer and historic photos of Adolf Hitler, the German chancellor known for his Third Reich sleepaway camps (or—as White House spokesman Sean Spicer rebranded them—“Holocaust centers”). Although the controversy is larger…
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Marilyn Mosby Treated Baltimore Cops the Way Cops Treat Everyone Else; Now They’re Coming for Her
Marilyn Mosby is under fire. On May 17, a coalition of law-enforcement officers, attorneys and community officials formed a super PAC dedicated to ousting Mosby from her position as Baltimore City state’s attorney, according to the Baltimore Sun. While the position is not typically the focus of a highly funded political race, the June 2018…
