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Bakari Sellers' Invisible Black America
I know Bakari Sellers. Before I even read his upcoming memoir, I knew his life story like the back of my hand. We’re practically cousins. We were both raised in eerily similar South Carolina towns. Sellers grew up in Denmark, S.C., where my family briefly ran a small diner where people regularly ordered “liver pudd’n”—a…
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Social Studies: The New Negro Spiritual
As we begin to flesh out this social studies feature, we heard through the grapevine (not The Grapevine) that many of you were wondering what the hell we were trying to do with this series. Is it just a listicle meant for clicks? Is it a list of memes? Nah, it’s black history. Throughout the…
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: True or False Equivalency
“If a white person said that…” “What about…” “The Bible says…” Those three introductory phrases are staples in the language used by trolls. But, while some people immediately tune out everything that follows, we at The Root have an obligation to respond to these false equivalencies. We even built a system for it. All during…
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Social Studies: Black Twitter 'Verzuz' White Twitter
Social media is a great educational tool. Because of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining and white flight, there are many black people who have not had the chance to acquire firsthand knowledge of white people. Luckily, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. allows for great insight into the practices and habits of people who buy clothes from QVC.…
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Armed Black Men Show Up In Neighborhood Where Armed White Men Lynched Ahmaud Arbery
A group of black men exercising their Second Amendment rights showed up in the Georgia neighborhood where Ahmaud Arbery was killed to demonstrate for freedom and liberty because… Oh, wait, I’m showing my journalistic bias by reporting this story in the same way that outlets reported on the white protesters who storm state capital buildings…
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Social Studies: Who in the Hell Left the Gate Open?
Before we begin, can anyone explain this Obamagate stuff that the Trump Administration pushing? First of all, why does adding “gate” to the end of a word make it a scandal? The Nixon Administration was undone by a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and since then, white people just lazily started adding “gate” to random…
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Sanctuary for the Devil: The Church Service That Birthed a COVID-19 Outbreak and the Black Women Who Fought It
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist. — Keyser Soze text Pastor Rahsaan Armand knows the devil exists. But as he sped through the rural roads near West Virginia’s Marion County-Monongalia County line, he had no idea he was headed in the devil’s direction. Armand didn’t even know…
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Social Studies: May 13, 2020
One day in the future, just before we head out into the post-apocalyptic dystopian landscape to forage for food, we’re probably going to look back at this administration and wonder what the hell was wrong with us. We’ve just gotten used to his antics. I know, I know—there’s just too much Trump malfeasance to get…
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Ain't Nowhere to Run: An Open Letter to Ahmaud Arbery
Although Michael Harriot is on vacation this week, he still agreed to write our weekly Clapback Mailbag. However, instead of responding to trolls, haters, disgruntled readers and anyone who has a question about the content on The Root, Michael submitted this open letter to Ahmaud Arbery. Dear Mr. Arbery, Do not rest in peace. Haunt…
