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‘I’m Terrified of Dying Like Eric Garner’
When video footage of a California highway patrolman pummeling a defenseless 51-year-old black woman named Marlene Pinnock surfaced on July 1, it sent shock waves throughout many communities around the country. It took place in broad daylight on the side of a freeway and was heart-wrenching to watch as she was pursued on foot by…
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Why Isn’t Billy Dee Williams in Star Wars: Episode 7?
When the cast photo for the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII was released in April, nerds everywhere jumped for joy. The rumors that had been swirling around for a few years were true. Not only were Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher reprising their roles from the original trilogy, but they were apparently going…
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When Black Venus Was the Ideal Standard of Beauty
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black Archive & Library at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. A beautiful black woman stands in an elegantly twisting pose, her naked body rising in a series of fluidly shifting forms. She…
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Black and Unarmed: Men Without Weapons Killed by Law Enforcement
Michael Brown, 18, was on his way to his grandmother’s house in Ferguson, Mo.—a surburb just outside of St. Louis — on August 9, 2014 when a series of events would claim his life. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, some reports indicate that Brown and the police officer who’s accused of shooting him engaged in an initial struggle…
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Did Black Slaves Revolt in Iraq?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 88: Which event in black…
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An Open Letter to My White Stepmom
Before I delve too deeply into this, I want to remind you that I do love you. It is because I love you that I am writing this letter. It’s true that in typical teenage fashion, I replaced the sadness of my mother’s absence with resentment for your presence. Still, you’ve never done anything to…
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Cory Booker: 3 Signs the Selfie Senator Has Big Plans
Jay Z may have waxed himself into hip-hop immortality with “99 Problems,” but Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is drowning himself in 99 selfies. Somehow the New Jersey-bred genie has maneuvered his legendary social media savvy into political Similac for bipartisanship. Driven either by a pitch for Guinness World Records or genuinely convinced that he can…
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For African-American Women—and All Women—Let’s Make Every Day Equal Pay Day
When we talk about the gender pay gap, most of us are already familiar with the fact that women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. While this remains true, not all women are even that fortunate. For African-American women the wage gap is even larger. African-American women make just 64 cents…
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Report: HIV Diagnoses Fall in US, Rise Among Some Gay Men
The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the rate of HIV diagnoses in the United States have fallen more than 30 percent over the past decade, but has surged among some gay men, according to Philly.com. There has been a dramatic 132.5 percent increase in the rate of HIV diagnoses among men who…
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Watch: NYC Cops Purportedly Failed to Help Eric Garner After ‘Choke Hold’
Stunning new video footage posted online claims to show more than seven additional minutes of circumstances involving the death of Eric Garner, the Staten Island father who was put in a choke hold by a New York City police officer and died, the Washington Post reports. Authorities say that Garner died Thursday of a heart…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
