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Will Kerry Washington Be the 1st?
Kerry Washington fans are on tenterhooks as they wait to find out Sunday if she will become the first black woman to win a primetime Emmy for lead actress in a drama series for her role on ABC’s Scandal. It was announced earlier this summer that Washington was nominated for her first Emmy for her…
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Woman Killed Over Facebook Feud
(The Root) — Another person is dead after a fight on Facebook. Khalila Southall, 30, of Chicago, was arrested and charged with the murder of 28-year-old Lakeisha Tate. The two fought at gas station after a quarrel online. Southall shot Tate twice, once in the torso and once in the leg, before fleeing, but left…
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More Than 20 Killed as Militant Gunmen Storm Nairobi Mall
More than 20 people, including children, are reportedly dead after militant gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, early Saturday, sending panicked shoppers running into the streets, Reuters reports, citing witnesses’ accounts and the Red Cross. Kenyan officials blamed the attack on the Somali militant group al Shabaab, saying members had threatened to strike…
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Why a School Board Banned 'Invisible Man'
Saying it lacks “literary value,” members of the Randolph County Board of Education in North Carolina voted Monday to ban Ralph Ellison’s award-winning 1952 novel Invisible Man from reading lists, according to UPI. The Randolph County Board of Education voted 5-2 to remove the book following a complaint from a parent. “This novel is not so innocent;…
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University of Alabama: White Sororities to Admit Blacks
Following a spate of bad publicity after the campus newspaper alleged racial discrimination in the University of Alabama pledging system, President Judy Bonner released a video statement late Friday announcing diversity in the school’s sororities, according to USA Today. Seventy-two bids – offers to allow a person to pledge – have been offered by the…
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Quote of the Day: Chuck D on Hip-Hop and Race
Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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.
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Poor White Cash: GOP and Food Stamps
(The Root) — The Republican Party is engaged in class warfare against poor and middle-class white Americans. It is a little-discussed fact but an ironic one worth noting, since those are the very same people who elect them. This week, House Republicans passed a nutrition bill that eliminates $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance…
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Obama Must Not Yield to Republicans
The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson says that President Barack Obama must be the strong disciplinarian in his dysfunctional congressional family because Republican leaders have failed to corral errant party members who think they can dismantle Obamacare, force a government shutdown and hold the debt ceiling hostage by throwing tantrums. Mature adults in the GOP should…
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Food Stamps vs. Partisan Politics
Writing at the Huffington Post, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) chides the Republican-led House of Representatives for putting partisan politics above people’s right to survive after members passed a bill to eliminate basic food aid for 4 million struggling Americans, including 200,000 children. With millions of Americans out of work and millions more working for minimum…
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Mitt Romney's New Black Grandchild
(The Root) — Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney threw Twitter for quite a loop today. He surprised everyone by tweeting a picture of his newly adopted grandson, who is absolutely, positively gorgeous and adorable and precious — and also black, judging from the picture. Given Romney’s history of being perceived as not the most…

