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How Michelle Obama Pleased the Fashion Gods in 2013
Keli Goff is The Root’s special correspondent. Follow her on Twitter. Since her husband secured the Democratic nomination for president, Michelle Obama has become one of the world’s most-watched style influencers. Five years in the national spotlight have not dampened enthusiasm or interest in her fashion choices, with “Who is she wearing?” remaining one of the…
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Tired of All the Beyoncé Analysis?
Beyoncé dropped an album last Thursday night, and we’ve spent a lot of time dissecting the meaning of that moment. (Is she groundbreaking? Is she a feminist? Is she allowed to call herself a feminist? Was her nontraditional marketing really just a brilliant marketing ploy? Is she condoning rape on “Drunk in Love”?) Enter #BeyonceThinkPieces,…
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R. Kelly Responds to Details of Child Pornography Charges
We’ve long known about R. Kelly and his taste for underage girls. We all saw the video in which the singer allegedly pees on an underage girl. None of the details of the situation—the video, the dragged-out child pornography case, his marriage to 14-year-old Aaliyah in 1994—are lost on our collective pop-culture memory. Which makes…
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NYC Mayor Blames God for Homeless Girl’s Plight Instead of His Policies
Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be in his last few weeks as New York City’s mayor, but he sure is finishing his tenure with a bang. Today it was reported that when asked for his reaction to the harrowing New York Times series on a little homeless girl named Dasani, he replied, “This kid was dealt…
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Everyone Knew His Name. Now Hear His Story
There was a time, back in the ’80s and the ’90s, when you couldn’t turn the corner in Washington, D.C., and not see some evidence that Cool Disco Dan had been there. Way before Banksy, the D.C. graffiti artist was blasting his nom de plume on the sides of buildings, on bridges and on subway…
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Quote of the Day: Bob Marley on Freedom
You can read this quote from “Redemption Song” (1980), and additional quotes by Bob Marley, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Listen to the song 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…
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8 Ways to Build Loyal Followers on Twitter
When it comes to Twitter, it’s hard to be an overnight success. It takes time to build and cultivate the relationships that can ultimately increase awareness of your business or personal brand. Attracting engaged followers is the key to success. When I first started out on Twitter, I worked it like a job, but even…
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Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom Was Also South Africa’s
Nelson Mandela’s life contained enough drama, pathos and triumph to make several films based on his story, but the new biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is primarily concerned with revealing the man behind the legend. And it serves as an important reminder of the power of social movements in the face of political and…
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Watching 12 Years a Slave Could Save Your Life
Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is leading the Golden Globe nominations and is sure to be an Oscar contender. It’s been praised as an antidote to slavery-nostalgia fantasies like Gone With the Wind. Yet some see no redeeming qualities or uplift in the movie—just pain. Others feel that we don’t need to be reminded…
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Investing in African-American Women Could Jump-Start Economy
(Special to The Root)—African-American-owned businesses are the fastest-growing (pdf) segment of the women-owned-business market and are starting up at a rate six times higher (pdf) than the national average for all new firms. As the Center for American Progress’s new report “The State of Women of Color in the United States” shows, this is good…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
