Culture

After 83 Years of Marriage This Black Couple Holds The Record, But We May Never See a Stat Like That Again

After 83 Years of Marriage This Black Couple Holds The Record, But We May Never See a Stat Like That Again

Eleanor and Lyle Gittens hold the record for longest-married couple in the world. According to recent Black marriage data, that record won’t be broken any time soon.
Viral Video of ATL Boy Body-Slamming Classmate Sparks Debate Over Boys 'Hitting Girls Back'  

Viral Video of ATL Boy Body-Slamming Classmate Sparks Debate Over Boys ‘Hitting Girls Back’  

An Atlanta mother is standing by her son after a viral clip shows him body-slamming
Vince Staples' Comment About How Black Folks Would've Dressed For Jan. 6 Insurrection is Deeper Than You Think

Vince Staples’ Comment About How Black Folks Would’ve Dressed For Jan. 6 Insurrection is Deeper Than You Think

Vince Staples joked that Black folks simply look “better” during revolutions, and the Civil Rights
These Little-Known Black History Facts Are Sure to Shock You

These Little-Known Black History Facts Are Sure to Shock You

100 years after the first Negro History Week, we’re looking at some amazing, little-known Black
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    Obama's Achilles' Heel: A Writer's Soul?

    “He Can Be in a Room but Detach Himself” A writer granted rare access to President Obama for six months said Wednesday that the politically costly charge that the president is aloof grows out of a personality trait he shares with journalists: “It’s the personality trait of a writer.” Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of…

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    No Mrs. O: Washington Post's DNC Mishap

    Neighbors Buttonholed Staffers Over Missing Coverage “My favorite caller of the week was an erudite, sharp-witted woman who said she had been a Post subscriber since 1962,” Ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton wrote Sunday to readers of the Washington Post print edition. “After going through her entire paper on Wednesday morning, she said, ‘I couldn’t believe…

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    The Campaign: Only for the Middle Class?

    Poverty Issue “Nearly Invisible” in Election Coverage “ ‘Middle Class First,’ said the placards on display as Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic convention. And indeed, speaker after speaker has invoked the party’s devotion to the lot of middle-class Americans in 2012,” David Crary reported Friday for the Associated Press. “The rich also have featured in…

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    Was Deval Patrick Right About Romney?

    “Not Quite” the Image Presidential Campaign Paints “. . . Governor Deval Patrick, speaking Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention, assailed his predecessor’s economic record, pointing to anemic job growth and deep budget cuts that affected education, transportation, and other programs that support the state’s economy,” Megan Woolhouse and Michael Rezendes reported Wednesday for…

  • DNC 2012: On the Right to Vote

    (The Root) — The Democratic National Convention is partly a massive get-out-the-vote effort for President Barack Obama and other Democrats on the ballot this November. But the controversy over the voter-ID laws that have popped up across the country — laws that critics liken to Jim Crow voter-suppression tactics — has added a more urgent…

  • DNC 2012: What Do Democrats Offer?

    Last night Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told the Democratic National Convention delegates, “We Democrats owe America more than a strong argument for what we are against. We need to be just as strong about what we are for.” Earlier in the day, The Root’s contributing editor Elon James White posed a question along those lines…

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    Leave Fact-Checking to the Reporters

    “A few years back, the Los Angeles Times considered joining a runaway industry trend,” Erik Wemple wrote Friday for the Washington Post. “Everywhere you clicked on the political web, it seemed, someone was putting the drywall and paint on a stand-alone, cleverly branded fact-checking machine or at least some sort of discrete truth-outing posts. “.…

  • 'We Built It': Michael Steele's Take

    (The Root) — During the Republican National Convention last week in Tampa, Fla., The Root’s Keli Goff caught up with former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, who is also an MSNBC analyst and a regular contributor to The Root. In part 1 of their interview, they discussed whether the government had a role in…

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    How RNC Fared Versus 'Honey Boo Boo'

    Reality Show Tops Any Cable Channel’s RNC Coverage “Mitt Romney has always had to work hard to prove himself to the heart of the Republican Party, but more than 25.2 million people tuned in to the major networks and cable news stations to witness his well-received acceptance speech, making his the most watched hour of…

  • Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll on Voter ID

    (The Root) — Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., The Root’s Keli Goff caught up with Florida’s lieutenant governor, Jennifer Carroll. During the discussion, when Goff asked her about controversy over recent changes in Florida’s voting laws, which critics say disproportionately affect minorities, Carroll characterized current regulations as generous. She touted the…