Opinion
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Racists and White Jesus Need to Step Up Their Game
Hey, look, guys, I need to admit something: This whole mailbag thing may have been a bad idea. When we started this, it seemed like a grand plan to expose the various kinds of hate mail, tweets and comments the writers at The Root receive on a daily basis. It also gave us an outlet…
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I Toured One of the Most Radioactive Places on Earth
It’s 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, and I’m sitting in a white minivan at Kiev, Ukraine’s central train station waiting to visit Chernobyl, where the world’s most catastrophic nuclear incident took place in 1986. I’ve been visiting Kiev every three months since 2008, but I’ve never been to Chernobyl, just two hours north of…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The Art of the Last-Minute Clapback
Each Thursday I wade through all the mean emails, tweets, comments and direct messages sent to the writers at The Root and find the ones that warrant a response. I examine them for white tears, anger and racism and formulate a response in my head. Then I look at my computer and say: “I’ll do…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: A Basket of Horribles
I am currently suffering from the flu and feel like I’m going to die. But because of my dedication to the readers of The Root, I crawled out of bed to respond to a few emails, tweets, comments and direct messages we receive during the week. (And because, when I told my editor, Yesha Callahan,…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The Last Hotep
If you enjoy our weekly roundup of emails, tweets, direct messages, comments and that one voicemail we did months ago, you probably won’t like this edition of the Clapback Mailbag. You might not even recognize it. While it will be chock-full of clapbacks as usual, this week’s mailbag marks the first time no white supremacist…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: It’s OK to Be Butt-Hurt
Today’s mailbag is dedicated to Tucker Carlson, Fox News and all the white people around the world who believe that The Root is racist. Your claims have been overlooked for too long. They make movies about make-believe stuff like Santa Claus, Bigfoot and Caucasians who can dance, but never took the time to address your…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Cusswords, Awards and Our Old Friend Umar
It seems like only yesterday that we began highlighting the emails, tweets, comments and messages from our readers. As we close out 2017, we would like to thank our haters because we don’t know where we’d be without you. (Actually, we do know where we’d be without you. We’d be fractionally happier, I’d probably have…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: We’re the Real Racists
You’re the real racists. I’ve always wanted to say that. That phrase has surpassed “Not all white people” as the No. 1 complaint in the comments, emails, messages and tweets we receive at The Root. So today’s Clapback Mailbag is dedicated to the people who believe The Root should be added to the list of…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Wypipo Be Tripping
Why is clapping back so important? I’ve been asked that question a million times (I’m bad at math). But I thought we should take some time to explore this question. It might give our readers some insight into why we choose to jab back at those who send us hate mail, insulting tweets and ugly…