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Everything You Wanted to Know About the Police Reform Bills. No, Seriously…Everything
Right now, two separate and unequal policing bills are navigating their way through America’s highest legislative bodies as a response to the protests over the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and thousands of other people whose lives have been snuffed out by the hands, forearms, knees and bullets of police officers. While…
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Everything I Know About White People I Learned on Social Media
I use social media as a learning tool. Because I work around Black people, live with Black people and even care for a black dog in one of the Blackest cities in America, the only insight I have into white lives is checking out the Caucasian internet or watching reruns of a documentary series called…
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Jesus Can Wait
Shaun King is not wrong. Wait…hear me out. On Monday, conservative activist and racism whitesplainer Matt Schlapp warned people who wear shorts to church that tearing down conservative statues will eventually lead to the fall of their beloved country. Aside from the fact that a relatively obscure book called the Holy Bible specifically warned against…
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Exclusive Interview: Confederate Icons Speak Out on Recent Events
The George Floyd protests against systemic racism have reignited an age-old debate about whether there is a place in society for symbols to the Confederate States of America. In an attempt to examine both sides of the issue, The Root conducted an exclusive sit-down interview with two of the most heralded icons of the Confederacy…
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: Juneteenth Edition
I have a dilemma: I want to celebrate Juneteenth by socially distancing myself from wypipo but they won’t let me. So, today’s Clapback Mailbag is dedicated to all the white people who would have been slave masters if it wasn’t for emancipation. For Juneteenth, we have a very special “but what about black-on-black crime?” letter. …
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An Exclusive Interview With an Organizer of the Original Juneteenth Cookout
On June 18, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger and 2,000 troops, many of whom were black, arrived at Galveston Island to occupy the state of Texas after the last army of white supremacist army of the Confederacy surrendered. The black soldiers started spreading the word to nearby enslaved Africans that something big was going…
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Tim Scott Won’t Acknowledge Systemic Racism and Defunding Police Because He Actually Wants to Stop Systemic Racism…By Defunding the Police
I believe words matter…sometimes. But sometimes, words are stupid. For instance, remember when Republicans were upset because President Barack Obama wouldn’t say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” because Obama was kinda busy hunting down Osama Bin Laden and killing him? That was stupid. Then again, I am a writer and words are the foundation of…
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When Black Twitter Celebrated the First Juneteenth
Have you ever wondered what social media would have looked like on the first Juneteenth? Me either. But since we do this Social Studies thing every day, we’ve selected a few social media posts to imagine what this column would have looked like if Black Twitter existed on June 19, 1865, as the news broke…
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The Stolen Life of Mecenia Dials
Macie’s dead. She was not killed by a police officer while running away. She was not killed by black-on-black crime. She did not die in a school shooting. She was not powerless—she was strong — but not strong enough to stop America from opening its ferocious mouth and sucking her into its unyielding belly, swallowing…
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Yes, the Police Are Racist
Why does everyone think the Nazis were racist? Sure, Hitler was definitely racist. He ordered the extermination of the Jews from Germany and later from all over Europe once he became chancellor of Germany. Sure, He built the Third Reich—a political, social and economic regime based on the idea of Aryan supremacy. Sure Nazi soldiers…
