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Will Cleveland Admit It's Over With LeBron?
With apologies to poet Robert Frost, but with an acknowledgment of basketball star LeBron James’ new reality: Home is not the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. James, who forsook the Cleveland Cavaliers to, in his words, “take my talents to South Beach” and partner with Dwayne…
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The Root Interview: George Tillman Jr. Talks Movies
George Tillman Jr. may be best known as the director and writer of the seminal film Soul Food and as the producer of the triptych of Barbershop movies. Soul Food even spawned a television series, for which Tillman served as producer and which ran for seven seasons. But despite his success, he is loath to…
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LeBron James and the Race Card
When I first heard basketball player LeBron James, late of the Cleveland Cavaliers and now suiting up for the Miami Heat, reply to a question during a CNN interview about whether race was a factor in his sudden and intense vilification — “I think so, at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor” —…
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The Root Review: Waiting for Superman
After seeing the illuminating new documentary Waiting for Superman, I’ve decided that the lively debate at my house around public or private school for our 3-year-old is officially over: private all the way. It may sound harsh and dismissive, but even the limited but powerful dissection of the education system presented by director-writer Davis Guggenheim…
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The Roots and John Legend — Live! (And on the Web)
Terminal 5 in New York City was swaying Thursday night as John Legend and the Roots performed in support of their recently released CD, Wake Up! As noteworthy as the spirited event itself and the quiver of funky guest artists was the fact that the show was directed by Spike Lee and streamed live. This was the…
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Lena Horne: Rediscovering a Legend
Quickly produced posthumous music collections are often one of two animals: a primer on a now-deceased singer-musician who was underrated, underappreciated or, in too many cases, overrated; or a swift and easy way to capitalize on the recent passing of a genuine superstar. Both serve a commercial and cultural purpose, I suppose, but usually the…
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The Root Interview: Spike Lee on His Latest HBO Film
Spike Lee is easily one of the best and most prolific American artists of the last quarter century, and he continues to be black America’s agent provocateur. In his latest work, which airs on HBO Aug. 23 and 24, If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise, Lee returns to New Orleans five years…
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Will Blacks Accept Gay Marriage?
A couple of years back on Real Time With Bill Maher, the ubiquitous Cornel West was asked if black folks were decidedly more homophobic than other groups. Parsing his words carefully, the ordained Baptist minister said, “I don’t think we are any more homophobic than anyone else.” Maybe not, but certainly not any less. The…
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Brooklyn's Finest
“We live in Brooklyn, baby!” —Roy Ayers Those of us who live here know, not think, that Brooklyn, U.S.A., is the center of the universe. Forget that one in six Americans can trace a relative to the Borough of Kings, or that if BK were to secede, it would instantly be a top five American…
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Washington's Other City
In the long shadows cast by the Capitol and the White House exists a Washington, D.C., on the outermost periphery of the power and influence that the nation’s capital represents. And within this penumbra of powerlessness and invisibility, HIV/AIDS and taken root and threatens to overwhelm and destroy entire neighborhoods. Want an OMG statistic? At…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
