Culture

Why Social Media Destroyed Amerie's New 'NPR Tiny Desk' Performance

Why Social Media Destroyed Amerie’s New ‘NPR Tiny Desk’ Performance

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of "Touch," Amerie's performance had people feeling as shaky as the vocals.
Michelle Obama Shares Her Honest Take On Her Daughters Finding Independence

Michelle Obama Shares Her Honest Take On Her Daughters Finding Independence

Former First Daughters Malia and Sasha Obama are doing everything they can to become their
A Fan Wanted a Photo With One of His Favorite Rappers, Who Instead Takes Him Hostage

A Fan Wanted a Photo With One of His Favorite Rappers, Who Instead Takes Him Hostage

A moment that should've gone off without a hitch ended up with local authorities getting
Foolish Black TikTokers Claim Harriet Tubman Wasn't Real, But Here's The Truth

Foolish Black TikTokers Claim Harriet Tubman Wasn’t Real, But Here’s The Truth

The strange phenomenon has become an alarming trend on social media, but thankfully other users
  • The Vine: Marcus Samuelsson's Melting Pot

    As part of the Vine series on leadership, The Root’s Omar Wasow interviewed the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised celebrity chef about code switching, the difference between eating expensively and eating well, and the unique role of today’s African-American leaders. “Being able to be in many different worlds is really an opportunity,” he says. “I can talk to…

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    Bob Herbert Writes Final N.Y. Times Column

    Bob Herbert, the first African American op-ed columnist at the New York Times, is leaving the paper after 18 years, the Times said on Friday. His last column appeared on Saturday. “I have been writing a column for 25 years, nearly 18 at The New York Times,” Herbert said in a note to the Times…

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    Elizabeth Taylor Tributes Touch on Race

    Story Includes “Cleopatra,” Civil Rights, Michael Jackson “I did a short story on her when she held a news conference in D.C. to promote the play, ‘The Little Foxes’ that she was starring in at the Warner Theater,” Brenda Wilson, then reporting for NPR, recalled for Journal-isms on Wednesday. “The then Mrs. Warner was a…

  • The Vine: Is Cory Booker the First Twitter Mayor?

    The Newark mayor tells The Root, “I have an audience of over 1 million followers on Twitter — that’s bigger than my state’s largest newspaper.” In the latest installment of our Vine series, he talks with Omar Wasow about his building dynamic coalitions and managing his message in the digital age.

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    Black Reporter Clive Myrie Reports in Japan

    Black reporters have not been prominent in coverage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami tragedy, though if you tune in to the BBC, you might see Clive Myrie toiling amid the muck. Born in Greater Manchester, he delivers his reports with a British accent. Myrie filed reports this week from a refugee center in Yamagata,…

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    AOL Denied Any Layoff Impact, but 2 Exit Black Voices

    Despite a statement from an AOL spokesman that AOL’s $315 million purchase of Huffington Post would have “no impact at all” on AOL Black Voices and AOL Latino, two employees of Black Voices had sent farewell e-mails to colleagues the day before. The two are Alexis Garrett Stodghill, programming manager who supervised the Money division,…

  • The Vine: Black Leaders Know Obama's Color Boxes Him In

    Nearly two decades ago, Ellis Cose ripped the veil of contentment off the black middle class and exposed its seething frustrations with racism and the glass ceiling. In his latest book, The End of Anger (due out in May), Cose tells The Root’s Omar Wasow that African-American leaders understand that it is more difficult for President Obama to appear to…

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    AOL Cuts 900 Jobs, Says Black Voices Spared

    Ken Strickland, a veteran producer in NBC News’ Washington bureau, was named deputy bureau chief Friday by Antoine Sanfuentes, the recently named Washington bureau chief.The appointment means a Hispanic journalist and a black one will remain in the top two spots in the bureau. “He will work with me to manage the day-to-day operation of…

  • Aretha Franklin Debuts New Song for Tavis Smiley

    To mark her 50 years in the entertainment business, Columbia Records is releasing an album of Aretha Franklin’s hits from 1960 to 1965. She also has a new single coming out — a remake of Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” — which she played an exclusive preview of on this weekend’s The Tavis Smiley…

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    NPR CEO Resigns After Second Major Embarrassment

    Departure Follows Second Major Embarrassment Vivian Schiller resigned as president and CEO of NPR, its board of directors announced Wednesday, a day after news broke of a sting by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe in which a surreptitiously recorded video showed the head of NPR’s fundraising arm saying that members of the tea party movement are…