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No We Can't, Black Folks
There’s been an e-mail going around advising black folks on unacceptable behavior now that Obama has won. We at The Root thought we’d add a few tips of our own. 1. No Negro spirituals or quotes from Dr. King. John Hope Franklin can get away with this. The rest of us cannot. 2. Don’t go…
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LeBron Kong Attacks!
And when he get on he leave your ass for a white girl. —Kanye West I’ve spent the day hugged up with Vogue — staring into its beset April cover featuring athlete LeBron James and android Giselle Bundchen, and trying hard not to be numb. I’m trying to brush off the fact that the first…
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Was it Too Little, Too Late?
It was an amazing speech, a brilliant speech. It was brilliant both in substance and in delivery. He told a convincing, moving story about his own racial history. He was able to paint a truly hopeful, but pragmatic, picture of why people should come together across races. He attempted to explain why he would not…
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My Son the Drug Enforcer
My middle son is a cold-hearted drug enforcer who brutally murdered a young man poised to leave a life of crime. His father and I couldn’t be prouder. Darrell, 22, has for two years played O-Dog on The Wire, the searing HBO series about life on Baltimore’s drug-strangled streets that ended last night after a…
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Groundhog Day for the Dems
Somewhere between Texas and Ohio on Tuesday night the Democratic political groundhog saw his/her shadow and decreed at least another six weeks of campaigning. After crucial wins on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said she was staying in and Barack Obama, somewhat comforted by his lead in delegates, will have to wait a while before claiming his…
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Talking the Talk, Walking on Water
The man does not merely have supporters. He has disciples. Sen. Barack Obama’s rhetorical themes clearly tap into the religious subconscious and spiritual sensibilities of Americans. Obama has cleverly become the first contemporary American politician to successfully collapse the distinction between religion and politics—all without ever using explicitly religious language. The fervor of the excited…
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Blackness Primer Revisited
My recent piece on a definition of blackness seems to have created some misunderstandings. Many seem to think that if all people of African descent do not exhibit a cultural trait, then there are no grounds for designating that trait “black.” Upon which I note: ostriches do not fly; bats do. Does this mean that…
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Queer, Dead and Nobody Cares
Little Lawrence King was queer. Not just in some identity politics way, but literally. Despite the innocence of his round, brown cheeks and puppy dog eyes, the kid was a threatening oddity at his Ventura County junior high school. Either because he was brave or naïve, or because he just couldn’t help himself, Lawrence reveled…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
