Diddy’s Daughters’ Tearful Exit From Trial Ignites Black America’s Outcry
Black Celebs Showed Out at Paris Fashion Week
A White Waitress at a St. Louis Restaurant Calls a Black Woman Customer the B-Word on Video, and It Only Gets Worse From There…
Mama Duke Just Dropped Another Banger and Fans Say It’s As Good As Her ‘America’s Got Talent’ Hit
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MacArthur Winner Jason Moran Wants to Spread the Music
When Jason Moran became the 13th jazz musician to win a prestigious and lucrative MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, he was able to celebrate in a way that no other musician has. He played for a week at jazz’s most renowned nightclub, the Village Vanguard in New York City; the engagement was arranged well in advance of…
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A Big Step for Chucho
On his latest release, Chucho’s Steps, the pianist offers an intriguing panorama of his talent and his taste. He pays tribute to Joe Zawinul, the pianist for the fusion-jazz pioneer band Weather Report, quoting from one of that group’s most famous tunes in “Zawinul’s Mambo.” This is a reminder that Valdés came to the attention…
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Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson Dead at 48
Sad news for the people of Barbados: Their prime minister, David Thompson, died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 48. His deputy, Freundel Stuart, was sworn in this morning as the new prime minister. The next elections are scheduled for 2012. Thompson, who became prime minister of the Caribbean nation of 270,000 people in…
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No More 'Fried, Dyed and Laid to the Side'
By Deborah Dickerson KJ, I loved your response to Dominique Browning’s rebellious decision to maintain her long, gray locks for as long as she damned well pleases. But I’m struck, as usual, by how different the world of beauty standards (and resistance to same) is for black women. (Sorry, Asians and Hispanics. I wouldn’t dare “go…
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The Firing of Juan Williams: NPR Got It Wrong
You have to admit: Whether the spectacle is staged or genuine (I lean toward the latter), it is pretty ironic to see the Fox News Channel’s crew of media personalities gang up on National Public Radio in defense of Juan Williams, the man who regularly makes Bill Kristol reach the point of verbal explosion on…
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Annette Gordon-Reed's 'Genius' Pursuit
Annette Gordon-Reed’s lifelong interest in history became the platform for a curious phone call she received this fall. “I was stunned,” she told The Root. “I was totally expecting to hear [someone else] on the other end, and then [an unfamiliar voice] said, ‘Are you by yourself?’ Yes. ‘And are you sitting down?’ ” The…
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The Root Interview: Playwright Roy Williams on Race in the U.K.
LONDON — Revered as one of Britain’s most prolific black playwrights, Roy Williams was born in the United Kingdom to Afro-Caribbean parents. At 42, the award-winning playwright has more than 15 plays to his name — Sucker Punch, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads and Fallout are among his latest — gritty, witty and…
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The Root Interview: HUD's Shaun Donovan on Foreclosure Chaos
Just when it seemed that this country’s home-foreclosure crisis couldn’t get any worse, Bank of America made a stunning announcement on Oct. 1: The nation’s largest consumer bank was halting foreclosures altogether in 23 states (later expanded to 50) after reports came out that it and other banks had “robo-signed” thousands of affidavits confirming that…
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Tyler Perry on the View
Helena Andrews is a contributing editor at The Root and author of Bitch Is the New Black, a memoir in essays. Follow her on Twitter.
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Driving Miss Daisy: Remembering the Real-Life 'Hokes'
I did not see the off-Broadway run of Driving Miss Daisy in 1987 in which Morgan Freeman originated the role of Hoke Coleburn. I did see the 1989 film, where he was longtime chauffeur to Jessica Tandy’s Miss Daisy, steering her — and himself — not just through her errands in Atlanta but also through…