Opinion
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Fla. Secretary of State Resigns After Photo Emerges of Him in Blackface as a ‘Katrina Victim’
Another day, another person is forced to resign because he thought it would be funny to paint his skin black, tie his hair in a scarf and wear a shirt that read, “Katrina victim.” Don’t worry if the joke is lost on you, that’s because it’s not funny. On Thursday, photos Florida’s Secretary of State…
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A Neverending Quest for Sovereignty
I often jokingly tell people that I grew up in a household made up of three (occasionally four, depending on what station in life my father was in at the time) distinct American dreams—one for each flag or passport represented: Comoros, Canada and the United States. My mother, my brother and I are a trinity…
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Brave White Girl Doesn’t Limit Herself to Being Racist Just One Way, Kicked Out of Sorority for Blackface and Saying the N-Word
College students are openly, carelessly, and publicly racist so often I’m almost tempted to call it a rite of passage for the black students whose days, weeks, or semesters they’re inevitably ruining. But we don’t tend to think about them when stories like this one crop up: A University of Oklahoma student was caught on…
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: The Black Lists
A list of reasons why, each week, the Clapback Mailbag responds to emails, direct messages, tweets and comments from readers: Because we care. Where else would we respond to this racist bullshit? We asked, “What Would Jesus Do,” and he responded: “What the hell is a tweet?” It’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have…
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Maybe Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey Really Is Just Donald Trump in Disguise
Have you ever noticed how when Donald Trump is on camera talking, a whole lot of words are coming out of his mouth, but none of them are really making sense? Even when people ask him very direct, sometimes close-ended questions, he seems unable to answer them in a way that indicates there is any…
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The Unbearable Blackness of Being
Shortly after I entered the world via Detroit’s now-shuttered Grace Hospital one summer day in 1981, I set upon what was an unmistakably black-ass upbringing in one of America’s chocolatiest cities. That which we refer to as “black people shit” as an adult was simply childhood by default: a quarter for a baggie of assorted…
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America. In Black.: A VSB Essay Series About the Unique and Individual Experiences of Black People in America
One of the best parts about VSB over the course of our existence—which is going on 11 years(!!!!!) come March—is that we’ve had the opportunity to write about and share many different aspects of blackness in America. Some of it has been serious and some of it has been fun, but the vast majority of…
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Do White People Have Higher IQs?
Sick Kyle! Hey racist baby! Who’s Kyle? Why is he sick? And why are you wiping your forehead with the back of your hand? Do you have a fever? And why are you wearing a white robe? Did you just get out of the hospital or something? Oh, tiny Führer, you mean Sieg Heil. It…
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Sounds About White: Colonizer 'Artist' Gentrifies African Desert With Whitest Song Ever
One day in the not-too-distant future, when the nearest star to our galaxy suddenly collapses, a group of astrophysicists from around the globe will convene to discuss the theoretical physics of the interplanetary incident. One of these researchers, we shall call him Chadwick, will bravely step forward and propose a manned space flight to examine…
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You Can’t Be Mad at Big Boi and Travis Scott If You Watch the NFL
Oh, sometimes as we struggle it will be necessary to boycott. But let us remember as we boycott that a boycott is never an end. A boycott is merely means to awaken within the oppressor the sense of shame and to let him know that we don’t like how we are being treated. – Martin…