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Millennials Challenge the Status Quo
Today’s youths, like their forebears in the civil rights movement, are turning to strategic protest to challenge the status quo, including fighting to end “Stand your ground” laws, Dani McClain writes at Colorlines. Since July 16 — three days after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced — [Curtis] Hierro and between a dozen and 60…
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Join Us for 'Martin Moment' Chats on Google Plus
(The Root) — Starting this Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013, at 3 p.m. EDT, The Root, in partnership with the NAACP and the Black Youth Project, will kick off the “Martin Moment” series on Google+. Against the backdrop of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, and the reinvigorated discussion…
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Why So Long to Reform Prison Sentences?
Writing at CNN, Tavis Smiley argues that racism is one reason it took the federal government so long to change harsh, mandatory sentencing guidelines for certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders. The laws primarily affected minorities, especially black men, he says. As I watched the announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder this past week in San Francisco…
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Lee Daniels Says People Are Angry That Obama Is President
Following the No. 1 weekend opening of Lee Daniels’ The Butler, the Hollywood filmmaker Lee Daniels, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz sat down Monday with CNN‘s Piers Morgan. Responding to a question from Morgan about postracial America in the age of Obama, Daniels said, “I think that people are angry that he’s president, and…
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What Is Wrong With Mayor Michael Bloomberg?
In a bruising profile of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New Yorker tackles his 12 years in office, describing him as “a plutocrat” who used his sizable wealth to remain in power. The article paints him as being out of touch, especially regarding minorities and low-income residents. His remarks on the subject of stop-and-frisk have sometimes…
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Robin Thicke and the Art of Jacking for Beats
(The Root) — “Gimme dem beats fool/It’s a full-time jack move.” —Ice Cube, “Jackin’ for Beats” (Kill at Will) In their 40 years of creating classic beats and rhymes, rap- and hip-hop-influenced R&B producers have always found inspiration from soul, funk and rock-and-roll musicians. Whether it is Ice Cube’s sampling of James Brown’s “Funky Drummer”…
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Former Intern Sues Diddy's Bad Boy for Back Pay
A 26-year-old former intern filed a class action lawsuit on Tuesday in a federal court in New York City, saying that Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment and its parent company violated minimum wage laws, the Daily News reports. Rashida Salaam, 26, filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan Federal Court, accusing Bad Boy and…
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Quote of the Day: Jesse Owens on Helping Others as You Climb
Read the full quote 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. Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
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Are Weight Comments a Nonwhite Thing?
(The Root) — “I’m white, and I notice that people of ethnicities and nationalities different from mine can be very blunt with their comments about my body — from when I spent time in Jamaica and people openly called me fat without any negative tone, just matter-of-fact, to the Vietnamese women where I get my…
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Caribbean Literary Giant Gets His Due
(The Root) — This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Martinican polymath Aimé Césaire. If anyone truly deserves the title of Caribbean Renaissance man, it’s Césaire. Poet, playwright, co-founder of the influential literary movement négritude, politician and mayor of Fort de France, Martinique, for nearly 56 years, Césaire was a prodigious talent…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
