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Black Girls Need Empowering, Too
There has been much talk about empowering black boys in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death. Bernardine Watson at the Washington Post encourages a similar effort for young black girls, particularly given how many of them end up in the juvenile-justice system. Certainly a national focus on young African American males is overdue, particularly given…
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Obama and Jay Z Prefer to Inspire Than Work
Brittney Cooper, writing at Salon, describes how Jay Z and President Barack Obama rely too heavily on their ability to inspire black Americans instead of taking a more proactive role in carrying out measurable deeds that will help black culture. Yet when it comes to thinking about the political potential of hip-hop, Jay becomes mucked and…
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Raven-Symoné Privileged to Tweet About Her Sexuality
Actress Raven-Symoné’s established career enables her to post on Twitter about her same-sex relationship, but it’s a freedom that eludes most actresses, Allison Samuels argues in a piece at the the Daily Beast. “Interracial relationships and sex-same relationships are still subjects most famous people of color won’t discuss,” says black film historian and NYU film professor…
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Jazz Legend George Duke Dies at 67
Legendary jazz musician George Duke passed away on Monday at the age of 67, the Associated Press is reporting. He had been receiving treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The keyboardist and producer, who worked in a variety of genres with luminaries ranging from Quincy Jones to Miles Davis, had just released the album DreamWeaver, which…
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Where Are All the Cover Girls of Color?
A study done by the Huffington Post takes a critical look at the lack of diversity on magazine covers. The study tallied the number of white and black women who graced the cover of magazines like Cosmo and Teen Vogue from September 2012 to September 2013. While there was a 50-50 split for some publications,…
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A Glance at Antebellum Black Southern Life
(The Root) — 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 Institute for African and African American Research. Within the plain, candlelit space of a large, open-raftered kitchen, a convivial gathering of…
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Quote of the Day: Booker T. Washington on Oppression
Read The Root’s coverage of Booker T. Washington 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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Obama, Black America and the Jobs Crisis
(The Root) — For African Americans, the Great Recession continues. This is both troubling and ironic because it coincides with the administration of the nation’s first black president. The black community’s understandable pride in President Barack Obama’s existence (and that of Michelle Obama and Sasha and Malia) has inoculated the president against constructive criticism in…
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Tawana Brawley Needs to Come Clean
(The Root) — In 1987 a 15-year-old black girl from upstate New York became the center of a national media circus. Tawana Brawley had gone missing, which, of course, wasn’t the story. It was when she was found that all hell broke loose. After her four-day absence, a neighbor discovered Brawley, seemingly unconscious and unresponsive,…
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The Costs of Jailing the Mentally Ill
More people are being jailed for crimes they committed because of mental illness. And many of them are destined to cycle in and out of the criminal-justice system without getting the help they need because of a reduction in treatment facilities. According to The Economist, it costs much more to jail a mentally ill person…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
