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Racist Air Passenger Calls Blogger 'Big Fat N–ger'
Brittney Cooper tackles racism, weightism and stereotypes in a gut-wrenching blog post at Salon. During a flight home over the holiday, the woman seated next to her was still texting — rapidly — after the call had gone out to turn off cellphones. Cooper glanced over and caught the last few words of the text: “On the…
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It's Not Independence Day for Everyone
He loves the Fourth of July, writes The Root contributor Edward Wyckoff Williams in a blog post at Salon, but what is independence if full freedom still doesn’t exist for everyone in this nation? Comedian Chris Rock sparked a debate a year ago today, when he tweeted: “Happy white people’s independence day! The slaves weren’t free…
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Quote of the Day: John Hope Franklin on History
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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Black American Pride: Rep. Terri Sewell
(The Root) — A lot has changed since 1903, when W.E.B. Du Bois described black Americans as possessing what he called a “double consciousness,” caught between a self-conception as Americans and as people of African descent. As he put it in The Souls of Black Folk: “The Negro ever feels his two-ness-an American, a Negro;…
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Finally, Equal Rights for My Lesbian Mother
(The Root) — When I heard the news that morning, it whacked me in the chest like the kickback of a sudden and screeching stop. On Wednesday, June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. No longer would a legally married, same-sex couple be denied federal benefits…
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Zimmerman Trial: A Mother Speaks
(The Root) — After calling nearly three dozen witnesses over nine days leading up to the dramatic moment when Trayvon Martin’s mother took the stand, the prosecution on Friday rested its second-degree-murder case against George Zimmerman. Did the state prove Zimmerman’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? That seems as improbable as parts of his account…
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Zimmerman Trial: The Defense Calls Its First Witness
Friday, July 5, 5:22 p.m. EDT: Judge Debra Nelson has dismissed the defense’s request for acquittal in George Zimmerman’s second-degree-murder trial. Prosecutors argued against acquittal, saying, “One of them is dead and one of them is a liar.” The defense then called its first witness, Zimmerman’s mother, who identified the scream on the 911 call as…
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Tumblr Wants a Princess of Color for Disney's 'Frozen'
(The Root) — Another day, another white Disney princess. The Internet is speaking out about Disney’s latest tale, a reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. Promotional artwork for the retelling, entitled Frozen, reveals that the heroine is, again, white. Incorporating diversity into Disney movies has been a slow climb. It wasn’t until 2009…
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Black Unemployment Rose in June
The Labor Department released its June jobs report today with news that the economy added 195,000 jobs last month, while the national unemployment rate held steady at 7.6 percent. The good news is that the numbers were higher than the 165,000 a Bloomberg survey of economists had estimated. But some of the report’s numbers give pause:…
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Twitter Loves Dr. Bao in Zimmerman Trial
(The Root) — Twitter continues its communal viewing of the George Zimmerman murder trial, and while it was inevitable that the people charged with defending Zimmerman would be seen as heartless bullies by those rooting for justice in the form of a guilty verdict, today a hero emerged in the form of medical examiner Dr.…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
