• Serena's Apology: The Net Isn't Impressed

    (The Root) — Tennis star Serena Williams has released an official statement attempting an apology for her victim-blaming statements in a Rolling Stone interview released this week. As they were watching the news, interviewer Stephen Rodrick asked Serena her thoughts on the Steubenville, Ohio, case, in which two high school football players were convicted of…

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  • Blacks Get Weave; Can Whites Get Locks?

    “I’m an African-American woman. My good friend, who is a white male, very progressive and pretty much a hippie, is thinking about getting dreadlocks. He’s been asking me for my opinion about it and whether it would be offensive to black people, and I’m not sure. I don’t know if it’s fair to say, ‘Don’t…

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  • Quote of the Day: W.E.B. Du Bois on Race

    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. 

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  • America: More Diverse yet Less Equal?

    (The Root) — There is a strange dichotomy occurring in 21st-century America: The country is becoming more diverse and less equal. Last week the U.S. Census Bureau released data revealing that the majority of children under age 5 were from racial- and ethnic-minority backgrounds and predicted that white Americans will officially become a minority by…

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  • Supreme Court Ruling a Win for Voting Equality

    In a piece for the Huffington Post, the Rev. Al Sharpton applauds the high court’s recent ruling striking down Arizona’s attempt at voter suppression, known as Prop 200. It’s a victory for voting equality and justice — and a blow against racial profiling. Voting is a right, not a privilege. Apparently some folks need a…

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  • Jay-Z Benefits From Black People's Love of Smartphones

    Jay-Z’s latest business deal with Android involving his upcoming album is a win for the company, the rapper and African Americans, writes Jamilah King for Colorlines. The business mogul clearly knows his audience: Young black consumers love their smartphones, and blacks are more likely than other groups to report favoring Android. Jay-Z is teaming up…

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  • Oprah's Pinterest: What It Says About Her

    (The Root) — You can learn a lot about someone by taking a walk through their social media feeds. We’ll be regularly examining the secret life of celebrity Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts in a series called Celeb Social. For example: Let’s pretend for a hot minute that you’ve been living under a rock,…

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  • Take a Look: Idris Elba as Mandela

    We’ve seen him as a professional bank robber in Takers, a working-class father in Daddy’s Girls, a demented but brilliant detective in Luther — and of course as Stringer Bell in HBO’s The Wire — but we’ve never seen Idris Elba as a historical figure. Until now. Check out the new poster for the upcoming…

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  • Minority Kids With Autism Don't Receive Proper Care

    Black and Latino children with autism and other disorders don’t have the same access to specialists and care as white children with the same diseases, a recent study in the journal Pediatrics suggests. According to CNN, minority children with autism are often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed as early as white children. Specifically, African-American children aren’t diagnosed until roughly…

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  • 17 Folks Who've Never Heard 'Strange Fruit'

    (The Root) — Kanye’s sixth studio album, Yeezus, was released on Tuesday, but the Internet has been buzzing about it since it leaked last week. One song in particular, “Blood on the Leaves,” made a particularly big splash. It samples Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a haunting song about the epidemic of lynching in the American…

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