• Quote of the Day: Richard Wright

    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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  • Black Girls Have Bulimia, Too. I Should Know

    In a personal essay at Ebony.com, Latria Graham delivers a reminder that eating disorders don’t belong to a specific race or shape. At nine, when my eating disorder started, I didn’t know what to call it. I knew the moment I’d stuck my fingers down my throat that I was doing something unnatural, and when…

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  • Loving Another Woman Helped Me Love Myself

    Although we don’t all necessarily have to be bedfellows, talking honestly with other women (black, white, straight and gay alike) about our deepest uncertainties about self is pretty radical, writes Kimberley McLeod in a piece for xoJane. Loving another woman is a revolutionary act. I’d heard it before but didn’t quite grasp the gravity of…

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  • AfroPunk: The Other Black Experience

    (The Root) — There’s something about Brooklyn in summer. The Fort Greene neighborhood was the first place in the Big Apple that I, a 22-year-old budding journalist from Northern California, really called home. There were artists, hipsters, hippies, hip-hoppers, neo-soulers and punks, and everyone was black. I’d never seen anything like that all rolled up…

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  • Learning the American Language of Racism

    Originally from Kenya, Cornell English professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi, in a piece for Ebony.com, reflects on experiencing and discussing racial prejudice in the United States. … Having recently (at that point) come to the US from Kenya, where the majority is Black African, understanding racism was at first an intellectual exercise. Yes, I knew being…

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  • Is 'Black Twitter' a Fad?

    (The Root) — I went to a very white school for undergrad. Out of a campus of 1,000, there were roughly 20 black people, myself included. One of my most vivid memories is sitting and talking with a couple of friends, all black, in one of the campus lobbies. That’s it. Just talking. Across the…

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  • Giving a Man Good Sex Won't Make You Wife-Material

    Whenever I have conversations with my single lady friends, at some point in the night the discussion will inevitably head down the path of inquiring what men truly want in relationships. And to be honest, it’s a fair question. There are so many blogs, magazines, TV shows, and books attempting to answer this question, yet…

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  • Twitter Comforts Andre 3000

    (The Root) — Rapper Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000, of the group Outkast has suffered a devastating loss. His mother was found dead on Tuesday, Billboard has confirmed — one day after his birthday. Benjamin’s mother, Sharon Benjamin-Hodo, was the founder of the Starlight Camp in Georgia, a program for underprivileged children. The family has…

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  • Feminists Claim Facebook Victory

    (The Root) — Thousands of tweets and emails appear to have paid off for members of a coalition of women’s organizations. Spearheaded by the Everyday Sexism Project; Women, Action, & the Media; and writer Soraya Chemaly, a campaign was launched to press Facebook to take a more proactive approach to dealing with shared content that…

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  • Rape Culture Isn't a Laughing Matter

    Aisha & Danielle Moodie-Mills are living their lives authentically, in color, and out loud in a city that is known for grey suits and clutched pearls. The pair, are rising stars in Washington where they labor together in their passions and politics. They co-host, Politini, a  politics and pop culture radio show on blis.fm, and…

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