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Prosecutors Dismissed Rachel Jeantel, Too
Taking the prosecution to task in the George Zimmerman trial, Lauren G. Parker writes at the Feminist Wire that the white men trying to convict Zimmerman implicitly devalued Rachel Jeantel’s testimony. Parker says they did so by suggesting that the jurors look beyond Jeantel’s “unsophistication” and lack of education in determining her credibility. The prosecution…
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Why Do We Call It 'Marijuana'?
Cannabis is known by many names: weed, reefer, pot … the list goes on. But one of its most common monikers, “marijuana,” has its roots in Mexico. But why? An article at the NPR blog Code Switch discusses the racially charged history of the word “marijuana” and how the drug stirred anti-immigrant sentiment in the…
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Justice Beyond 'Stand Your Ground'
(The Root) — When it comes to post-verdict activism against racist policies, don’t forget school discipline. School-discipline policies that disparately impact black students played no obvious role in unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin’s death, or in the national outrage that followed George Zimmerman’s acquittal. But in the activism surrounding a case that even President Obama…
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Quote of the Day: Harriet Jacobs on Fearing America
Read more about Harriet Jacobs 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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The President Can Do, and Say, More
(The Root) — Barack Obama passed a crucial test of presidential leadership this past Friday by directly and forthrightly addressing the crisis of race and democracy that has gripped the nation’s attention in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial. In an impromptu address to the White House press corps, Obama adopted the role of…
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Dwyane Wade's Ex Needs to Let Go
(The Root) — Over the weekend, I stumbled onto a Facebook post about the most recent antics of Siohvaughn Funches-Wade, the ex-wife of Miami Heat megastar Dwyane Wade. It seems that she, along with her mother and sister, planted themselves on the sidewalk outside of the circuit court in downtown Chicago last Friday and declared…
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Not My Childhood's Brooklyn
The gentrification taking place in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn inspired Chika Dunu to write a piece for Ebony lamenting the fact that her neighborhood has changed. She notes that the gentrification sends many negative messages to native Brooklynites. I am a Brooklyn native. Born and raised. I’m too young to have partied with…
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Interracial Families in 18th-Century Mexico
(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. One of the most typical, revealing products of colonial Spanish culture was the casta painting. This Iberian term…
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Obama Speech a Stark Reminder to Americans
In a piece for The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen says that President Obama’s comments on the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial reminded America of the disparities that minorities face in our country’s criminal-justice system. “It is a real calamity, in this country, for any man, guilty or not guilty, to be accused of crime,…
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Black Actors Perform in Trayvon Martin Video Tribute
Like most of the black community, actor Omari Hardwick was deeply disturbed by the not-guilty verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial. He decided to channel his feelings into a poem and then reached out to his peers to help him present it in a video. The result is “Little Black Boy Wonder,” dedicated to Trayvon Martin.…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
