13 Inventions We Would Not Have Without Pioneering Black Women
Beware: The Real Version of Your Partner May Be Hiding in Their Phone
All The Fabulous Black Style Seen At Paris Fashion Week
Take a Look Inside Barack Obama’s Former White House Man Cave
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This Is My Third Season Not Watching the NFL. Here's How My Life Has Changed Since I Stopped
Back in 2017, I decided to give up watching NFL games for various reasons. Chief among them was that I didn’t like how the NFL was treating Colin Kaepernick in the wake of his nonviolent protests against police brutality and the (what appeared to me to be clear) collusion among team owners to keep him…
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Extreme Heat, Flooding and Public Health Issues: How Climate Change Is an Existential Threat to Black People
We should all be pretty familiar with the term “climate change” by now. But knowing buzzwords isn’t the same as understanding how the phenomenon affects black people on a global scale in more severe ways than other groups. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Political instability in sub-Saharan Africa. Heatwaves in Chicago. What do these…
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Mathew Knowles Reveals He Has Breast Cancer and Emphasizes the Importance of Early Detection
On Tuesday night, a sad bit of news hit the Twitter timeline as Good Morning America promoted its Wednesday morning show. Mathew Knowles sat down with the show’s co-anchor, Michael Strahan, and revealed that he has breast cancer. “I’m hoping by me coming here today, speaking out, letting folks know that you can survive this…
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#NetNeutrality: Appeals Court Provides a ‘Net’ Win for States’ Rights, but Upholds the End to Federal Protection
A federal appeals court has affirmed the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to end net neutrality at the national level—but the court has OK’d the ability of state and local governments to set their own rules when it comes to the issue. Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit…
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Full Court Press: NBA Forces Every Franchise to Employ Psychologist, Behavioral Health Specialist for 2019-2020 Season
From Kevin Love to Metta World Peace, Dennis Rodman to DeMar DeRozen, players in the National Basketball Association—past and present—have publicly grappled with mental health issues. And that makes perfect sense, as the men of the NBA assuredly are part of the nearly 44 million Americans who have confronted mental illness in any given year.…
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Homecoming: A Powerful Pair of Revivals Prove Chicago a Mecca for Black Theater
There was palpable energy in the theater on the opening night of Drury Lane Theatre’s revival of The Color Purple—and a hallelujah chorus of shouts and co-signs from the audience, no doubt a rarity in the predominantly white suburb of Chicago known as Oakbrook Terrace. But the black theatrical community was out in force to…
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Sophia Chang and The Root's Danielle Belton on Race, Hip-Hop, Friendship and Being The Baddest Bitch in the Room
We laugh a lot. A lot. And we’re very good friends. And one of us wrote a book (psst … it’s called The Baddest Bitch in the Room and it’s available on Audible right now). But probably the most fascinating thing about being The Root’s editor-in-chief, Danielle Belton, and former music industry veteran-turned-author Sophia Chang—and…
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The Water Dancer: Ta-Nehisi Coates Joined Oprah in Conversation at the Apollo—and We Were There
It was an amazingly candid conversation, punctuated with lots of laughter, black-ass intonations, and responses from the crowd. “I love a talking back audience,” Oprah said, as she and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates presented a salon of sorts at the venerable Apollo Theater last week. The packed audience (which included this writer) was privy to a…
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In Yo’ Face Like a Can of Mace: Kehinde Wiley Unveils Black Male Monument in Times Square
Finally, something we can look up to—literally. A powerful image of a black man has been immortalized as a monument—in New York City’s Times Square, of all places. Acclaimed artist Kehinde Wiley unveiled his biggest work to date on Friday night, a massive bronze statue of a young black man in urban regalia sitting astride…
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Lights Out: Fed Agency Settles Sex Harassment Suit Linked to Ex Mortgage Regulator Chief Mel Watt
The Federal Housing Finance Agency has settled a sexual harassment claim brought by an employee against the man who once headed the agency, former North Carolina congressman Mel Watt. The FHFA in a statement Friday did not provide details about what the settlement entailed, but the employee who’d sued the agency for $1 million, special…