-
Reacting to the Trauma in 2013’s Black Films
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal interviews Stephane Dunn and Esther Iverem about black filmmaking and the 2014 awards season. Dunn is an assistant professor of English and co-director of cinema, television and emerging media studies at Morehouse College. Iverem is the founder and editor of SeeingBlack.com. Watch: Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
-
Do White Folks Fear Violence When Black Folks Are Just Being Blunt?
In the aftermath of the Michael Dunn verdict, we’re talking again about how Americans process black boys as inherently violent. And they do. Yet in an honest, and perhaps more productive, discussion of this topic, we have to allow something uncomfortable—the possibility that language plays a part in the stereotype. To whites, I highly suspect…
-
Quote of the Day: Josephine Baker on Her Body
You can read this quote by Josephine Baker, from her autobiography, Josephine (1977), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
-
Help Me Find My Black-and-Apache Dad
“I was born in 1971 in Boulder, Colo. My mother, Terri Bailey (née Luther), is white (German-Irish) from Kentucky. My father, Gregory Allen Bailey, who left us when I was 2, is half-black on his mother’s side and perhaps half-Mescalero Apache through his father. (I was told Mescalero, but the Bailey name is only on…
-
Black Inventors: Innovators Who Changed the Way We Live
Teresa Wiltz is senior staff writer at Stateline, the journalism outlet of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Way before George Washington Carver got busy in a chemistry lab, African Americans were revolutionizing U.S. industry with their amazing inventions. Some of them were born enslaved, others were born free, but they all had one thing in common:…
-
Racist Emails Create New Headaches for GOP
The Republican National Committee has spent much of February highlighting the party’s efforts to be more inclusive. Earlier this month the organization hosted its second annual Trailblazer Awards Luncheon honoring black Republicans such as former Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. The party also launched its first-ever Black History Month ad campaign, with…
-
Instagram’s Cutest Dancing Couple
If you want to swoon, follow Instagram user @adannaohakim, the dancing Instagram couple whose choreographed videos are being shared all over the Internets. Adanna and Udo dance to Nigerian music: And they also play music games with plastic cups: And they don’t take themselves too seriously: “When you’re married to your best friend ..#YouDance,” reads…
-
American Blackness Is Global Blackness
I was in the fifth grade when I cried over Tupac getting killed, and in the sixth when the list of Black Panther demands—food, shelter, clothing—first went up on my bedroom wall. Never mind that I had all three in abundance growing up in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, or that it would be several summers before…
-
Must Watch: Brian Williams Does ‘Rapper’s Delight’
On Wednesday, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon’s audience was treated to a mashup of NBC News’ Brian Williams and Lester Holt performing the old-school hip-hop track “Rapper’s Delight,” originally performed by the Sugarhill Gang in 1979. Kudos to whoever edited this masterpiece. Watch:
-
Quote of the Day: Stepin Fetchit on 1st-Class Black People
You can read this quote from Stepin Fetchit, which was said during a New York Times interview, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
