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Watch: Cornel West Gets Real About His Beef With Ta-Nehisi Coates and Barack Obama: ‘We Got to Keep Standards Up’
As a result of Cornel West’s public criticism of Ta-Nehisi Coates in the New York Times last month, we at The Root asked the good doctor over to our studios to have a word (this being Cornel West, many words) with me and senior reporter Terrell J. Starr. West is releasing the 25th-anniversary edition of…
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Are White Supremacists Infiltrating Law Enforcement?
You would have missed it if you weren’t listening carefully. On Sunday’s 60 Minutes, the second segment of the night was a profile of Christian Picciolini, a reformed skinhead-slash-racist-slash-dude-who-used-to-beat-black-people-up-on-the-reg; a man Dylann Roof recently called a “race traitor.” After saying that he had suffered an angry childhood in Illinois (that would be north of the…
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Recently Released Video of 21-Year-Old’s Violent Arrest in Pasadena, Calif., Leaves More Questions Than Answers
The city of Pasadena, Calif., recently released bodycam footage of an early November police stop at a gas station during which a 21-year-old was beaten bloody and suffered a broken leg.. The release of the six videos marks the first time that police-body-worn-camera video has been made public in response to a police use-of-force incident…
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Military Investigation Concludes Sgt. La David Johnson Was Not Captured, Refuting Earlier Reports That He Was Executed: Report
There’s more news on the tragic death of 25-year-old Sgt. La David T. Johnson, the circumstances around which have heretofore remained murky. An Associated Press report that broke Sunday afternoon revealed that Johnson—the young American soldier killed in an ISIS-, or Islamic State-group-affiliated ambush in Niger—wasn’t captured alive by the enemy or executed at close…
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White Supremacist Troll Low-Key Stalks Maxine Waters; George Zimmerman Mixes Her Up With Another Black Woman
Well-known white supremacist troll Chuck C. Johnson somehow found himself on a plane with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and snapped her pic in some kind of weird, stalkery behavior. As Little Green Footballs reports, Johnson was recently in the news for hyping a fraudulent sexual harassment allegation against Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and must have…
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When Harry Met Barry … a Prince Interviews a Former President for the BBC
Our favorite gingy, Prince Harry (well, my favorite, after Jidenna, Malcolm X and Jade McKnight) of England, sat down with former President (well, my current president) Barack Obama for the BBC as the two peas in a pod chatted about all the good things in the world. According to CNN, the interview took place in…
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17-Year-Old Maame Biney Becomes 1st Black Girl to Make US Olympics Team for Speedskating
We ’bout to see all the #BlackGirlMagic during the Winter Olympics in South Korea, now that a 17-year-old from Virginia has bust through. On Saturday, Maame Biney became the first African-American woman to qualify for the U.S. Olympics team in speedskating, with two victories in the 500-meter race. “I can’t believe it, aww geez,” said…
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Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson Says He’s Seriously Considering a Presidential Run … in 2024
Less than 20 years ago, back when when Erykah Badu was still the love of Common’s life, it would have seemed crazy—ridiculous, even—that an actor (especially an action actor) would go on record talking about seriously running for president. But since we’ve had Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of the country’s biggest state (and let’s be…
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Trump Administration Forbids CDC From Using 7 Words in Budget Documents, Including ‘Transgender,’ ‘Diversity’ and ‘Fetus’
You may call folks shrill for saying that the country under President Donald Trump is sliding into fascism, but in a minute, all of us will be speaking in panicked, high-pitched tones. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that there is now a list of words that are prohibited from appearing on any official document from…
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Is This Sign Racist or Just Part of American History?
There are two trains of thought on displaying America’s historically racist trinkets and statues—well, a lot more, but the main ones are: 1) Racist symbols are a part of our shared song and we shouldn’t shy away from them; and 2) Fuck that, don’t nobody wanna look at that racist shit while I’m walking in…
