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Scared to Start Investing? Watch The Root Live Now
In many African-American families, when we have an important issue to discuss, we gather in the kitchen and bring it to the table. That’s especially true of financial discussions, whether about how to pay the bills, how to send Junior to college or where to start looking for a new job. The Root Live: Bring…
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Retired Major League Baseball Player Racially Profiled in His Driveway
Retired major league baseball player Doug Glanville was hit with a sobering reminder of racial profiling in America one day in February as he stood in the driveway of his Tudor home in Hartford, Conn., shoveling snow, he writes in a poignant piece at The Atlantic. See, his neighbor, an empty-nester in his late 60s…
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Mimi’s Sex Tape: The Most Confusing Moments
VH1 on Monday announced the May 5 return of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, its top-rated show, by releasing a super trailer for the new season. In the four-and-a-half minute video, cast member Mimi Faust talks about making a sex tape with her now-fiance, Nikko Smith. Later, Faust appears to be shocked when she learns…
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The Rev. Jesse Jackson Denounces Attack on Detroit Driver
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has condemned the beating of motorist Steve Utash, which happened in Detroit this month when the man stopped his pickup truck to check on a child who had run into traffic and been hit by the truck, according to the Detroit News. Jackson told the News that those involved in the…
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Queens Man Sues NYPD for Alleged Pepper Spray Attack
A man has sued the New York City Police Department over an incident captured on video in which an officer allegedly pepper-sprayed him several times, the Daily News reports. Stefon Luckey, 34, an emergency medical technician, alleges in the suit filed in federal court in Brooklyn that he was assaulted at a deli last May in the…
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‘Suit & Tie’: Young Black Men Use Music Video to Combat Stereotypes
Dozens of young black and Hispanic men from Central High School in Champaign, Ill., got their “swagger on” in a music video designed to combat negative stereotypes about minority men, who are frequently portrayed in the media as violent and sloppily dressed. The honor roll students, poets, future collegiate athletes and National Honor Society members…
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Celestial Twins—1 Black, 1 White—Are a Symbol of Harmony
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. A precious fragment from the revival of sculpture in the European…
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Winning Big Again: Pro Athletes Turned Entrepreneurs
For many professional athletes, the winning doesn’t stop once they leave sports. From George Foreman’s popular grills to Magic Johnson’s chain of movie theaters, professional athletes are making moves beyond the boxing ring, court and field. 1. Junior Bridgeman This former NBA player owns Bridgeman Foods Inc., which operates more than 160 Wendy’s and more than…
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Americans Say Obama’s Not Black? How Pew Got This Wrong
Twenty-seven percent of Americans say President Barack Obama is black, while 52 percent say he’s mixed race. That’s part of a newly published Pew Research Center report that has inspired jarring headlines like these about perceptions of the man commonly (formerly?) known as the first African-American president: “Is Barack Obama ‘Black’? A Majority of Americans…
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Wheel of Fortune: Spinning the Politics of Racial Shame
In 2008, Kevin James (the pundit, not the actor) lived the nightmare of every single one of us who has ever appeared on air: He was humiliated on national television by the host of the show on which he was appearing. James, who is white, was there to defend allegations that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama…

