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Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination Is a Civil Rights Issue: Why Black People Need to Get Behind Title VII
This month, the Supreme Court heard arguments around a case that could transform how businesses across the country handle anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Anyone who purports to care about the black community should be concerned about efforts to ensure equal protection under the law to black LGBTQ+ people, including efforts to question the application of Title VII…
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Meghan Markle’s Royal Honesty Moves Us Closer to Reproductive Justice
The Markle Sparkle is real. The Duchess of Sussex is pure poise, professionalism and positivity, and, at times, she can seem more like a Disney Princess whose life is a fairytale beyond imagination. But then there other days, like the one last week, when the crown comes off and she gets real about how hard…
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Juvenile Fines and Fees Undermine the Entire Notion of Family in Courts Across the U.S.
“His mother works at Giant Food Store and his stepfather works at USPS. He can pay the court costs.” Those were the words I heard a Maryland judge utter as she imposed juvenile court fines and fees on the young black man standing before her. There was no inquiry into his family’s expenses—rent, bills, or…
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No Murder Charges for Georgia Cop Who Fatally Shot Naked Black Man in Mental Health Crisis
I mean, why wouldn’t he be charged with murder? The recent outlier that was Amber Guyger, a white cop who actually was criminally charged and convicted in the shooting death of an unarmed black person, is certainly the exception to the rule, which is that white cops can kill black people in all manner of…
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Help Black Girls Make Magic: 7 Organizations You Can $upport on International Day of the Girl
For black girls and young women of color, it can seem like the deck is perennially stacked against them. A recent study by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality quantified what many of us have intimately experienced: that adults view black girls under 14 as less innocent and more adult than white children of…
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Florida Man Who Killed Black Father Over Parking Space Will Stand His Ground in Prison for 20 Years
The white Floridian who gunned down an unarmed father of three over a parking dispute has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Michael Drejka got the book thrown at him in the 2018 death of Markeis McGlockton, wherein the sentencing judge blasted the 49-year-old, calling him a self-appointed “handicapped parking space monitor.” The AP…
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‘Am I Supposed to Be the Representation?’: A Black Mother Navigates Our Convoluted Mental Health System
Waiting for Tearah, a short documentary about how a black family navigates the labyrinth mental health system in Hartford, Conn., is symbolic of mental health dysfunction on a national level—and a testament to the beauty, innovation, and the sheer determination and grit of black mothers who walk through walls for their children. The 22-plus-minute film…
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Watch: Waiting for Tearah Spotlights How Our Children Are Languishing in Mental Health Facilities Far From Home
To honor Mental Illness Awareness Week (Oct. 6-12) , Frontline PBS and Firelight Media have partnered with The Root to bring you Waiting for Tearah, a short documentary by Juliana Schatz Preston. Waiting for Tearah tells the story of one African-American family’s struggle to navigate America’s dysfunctional mental healthcare system. Tearah, then 16 years old…
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The Force Don’t Stop: Michael Jackson Musical, MJ, Still Coming to Broadway
It’s back on like popcorn. A musical on the life of Michael Jackson in his heyday originally called Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough, has morphed—like Jackson did many, many times in his life—into MJ. It’s scheduled to hit Broadway in the summer of 2020, according to Playbill. A spokesman for the show announced the…
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Google Trolls BET Awards and the Homeless to (Shadily) Get Dark-Skinned Faces for Pixel 4 Technology
Tech behemoth and Big Brother is Watching purveyor Google—through a third party company—dispatched workers to blackety-black events like the 2019 BET Awards in Los Angeles to get darker-skinned faces for a facial recognition database, but often used skeevy and immoral tactics to do so, according to an explosive report by the New York Daily News.…
