Opinion
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Dear Drivers Who Veer Left to Turn Right, I Hate You. WTF Is Wrong With You?
This goes out to you and you — you know who you are, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You’re driving along a thoroughfare, minding your own business. Maybe you’re even listening to your favorite true-crime podcast as you venture into work, traffic court, or to that Brazilian wax appointment you’ve been putting…
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A Requiem for ‘White Women,’ Which the National Review Says Is a ‘Disparaging Term’
On Sunday, Oct. 14, Kyle Smith, the National Review’s critic-at-large, penned an opinion column alerting the magazine’s conservative readership of a disturbing new trend. Smith’s article lamented the fact that Democrats and people on “the left,” including this writer, are now slandering a sacrosanct segment of American society with an insidious, previously unknown racial slur:…
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When White Women Attack: White Woman Calls Cops on Black Boy for Sexual Assault, Clash of the Beckys Ensues
Channeling the ghost of Carolyn Bryant Donham (false accuser of Emmett Till), a now-viral Facebook video caught an angry woman calling the police to report that a frightened young black boy had dared to inadvertently brush up against her. “A white lady calling the cops on a black kid, I get it,” begins the four-minute…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Celebrity Edition
Some mailbags are different. Every Friday, we respond to questions and criticisms about the articles that appeared on The Root during the week. But each mailbag is unique. Sometimes the mailbag just wants to have an honest and open discussion without lobbing baseless accusations around. In fact, these emails came from all kinds of people’s…
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Dispatch From a Black Man in Trumpland: Kanye’s Oval Office ‘Minstrel Show’ Ain’t Only About Him
Speaking Thursday on CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Don Lemon took it there, calling Kanye West’s performance in the White House yesterday a “minstrel show.” “Him in front of all of these white people, mostly white people, embarrassing himself and embarrassing Americans, but mostly African-Americans,” Lemon said. Others have noted Kanye’s much-discussed mental health struggles…
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A White Woman Called the Police on a Whale… A Whale, Y'all
A viral video has captured the essence of gentrification after a white woman called the police on a school of whales hanging out in their own neighborhood, minding their own whale business. According to Time, Darren Lucianna and his family were on a boating trip in Puget Sound when they encountered a whale suffering from…
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#BabysittingWhileBlack: White Woman Calls Police on Black Man Riding Around With White Kids
A brave superheroine busted up a nonexistent child trafficking ring on Sunday when she noticed a black man riding around with two white children in his car and alerted the authorities to a kidnapping in progress. CBS 46 reports that a white woman who was temporarily working for the Avengers (which, it must be noted,…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The 10 Clap Commandments
You know what time it is. It’s Friday. After wading through the emails, tweets and direct messages from The Root’s readers, I noticed a disturbing trend: Some people have assumed that some of our articles have attacked them. Even though I’m breaking the first rule of clapping back (Rule No. 1: Never talk about clapbacks),…
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LaCroix Doesn’t Just Taste Like Bug Spray, It Might Actually BE Bug Spray
Remember way, way, way, way, way back when, when I was like, “Y’all are pretending to enjoy LaCroix,” and some of y’all were like, “Blasphemy! La Croix is the nectar of the Gods!” And then I was like, “Um, it tastes how Lindsey Graham’s voice sounds,” and then y’all were like, “I JUST BAPTIZED MY…
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Why Is It So Damn Hard To Vote?
They don’t want you to vote. I am not a conspiracy theorist, nor do I believe in the mythical “they.” So, for years, I have always wondered why more black people didn’t vote. Even if one doesn’t believe in politics, democracy or supporting a political system founded on white supremacy, I vote for the same…