Opinion
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: Nobody Knows the Trouble Whites See, Nobody Knows Their Sorrow
The Clapback Mailbag is a negro spiritual. White people love negro spirituals. They love the pain in the songs and the hope in the lyrics. If you ever want to steal shit from white people, just start singing a nineteenth-century slave song and I guarantee you they will close their eyes, lean back and enter…
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Y'all Tired Yet?
My mother thinks I love her. During one of our long rambling conversations about who died in our hometown and her trying to make me remember Miss Cora (who, I am apparently supposed to recall when she bought me a lollipop in the Piggly Wiggly when I was 3 years old…you know, she drove that…
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Trump Supporters Are Blaming Antifa for the Capitol Riot Because White People Are Racist Against Themselves
I’ll say it again: THE ONLY REASON TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE BLAMING ANTIFA FOR THE CAPITOL RIOT IS BECAUSE WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST AGAINST THEMSELVES! Mostly, I’m joking. What I mean to say is that conservative America has spent years—and especially the last several months—condemning the violence, destruction of property and general lawlessness that sometimes (but…
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We Need to Hold Corporate Enablers Accountable for the White Supremacist Insurgency at the Capitol
On Wednesday, our country witnessed what happens when we fail to address and reconcile a history of racial terror, white privilege and racial discrimination in our society. This brazen act of domestic terrorism further illustrates how corporate enablers and an out-of-control administration can create an incredibly dangerous climate for all Americans, and for our democracy…
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For Black People, Wednesday Was Just Another Day in America
There must be a certain stomach-churning consternation that comes with watching a house made of privilege disintegrate like a sandcastle at high tide. To watch the waves that keep you afloat wash over the moat that protects you. To discover that the gleaming beacon of liberty and freedom was never anything but a tiki torch.…
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White People Need Better Hobbies
Even as the pandemic has handcuffed so much of our activity, think for a moment of all the shit you still have planned for the next several days. A virtual yoga class you wish to take. A book you need to finish. A show you want to binge. A recipe you’re anxious to try. A…
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Their Eyes Were Watching Tyler Perry: Some Thoughts on Escapism, Responsibility and White Rage
For the past two weeks, I’ve been dealing with some heavy personal stuff that’s taken an immense toll on both my mental and emotional state. Coupled with the growing restlessness of the seemingly never-ending pandemic and the lack of social experiences to counteract said restlessness, by the time the New Year’s holiday came around, I…
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Meghan McCain's Face Is a Face
Meghan McCain’s face, captured here in a thousand-yard death stare while Brady-Brunched with her castmates on The View and Raphael Warnock, is not a bottle of Mylanta Maximum Strength Liquid Antacid/Anti-Gas Classic. Nor is it a pancake, a Cadillac Seville, a tent, a three-on-three basketball tournament trophy from the Pittsburgh Jewish Community Center, a poached…
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To Georgia, and Black People, Who Are One and the Same
Real quick: I heard them on the phone talking about you, disparaging your integrity. I would have at least told them to keep my people’s name out of their mouths, but I imagine that’s how white boys talk in private. In my head, they’re always talking about titties, yelling the n-word or concocting a nefarious…
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Opposition To the Term Karen Continues Because an Unwillingness To Tackle Racism Continues, Despite the Brief Reckoning in 2020
Whenever Black people collectively and specifically speak to the realities of anti-Blackness, there is often outraged and offended backlash from people who would rather racism continue unabated and—importantly—unacknowledged as racism. Because to acknowledge racism would necessitate people who consider themselves decent to actively work at eradicating it, or at the very least, call it out…