Fans Get Too Close to Rumi Carter at the ‘Cowboy Carter Tour’ Until They See …Jay-Z
Behind Florida’s Sheriff’s ‘We Will Kill You’ to Anti-Trump Protesters
What Black Men Secretly Want For Father’s Day
5 Gangsta Moves From Gov. Gavin Newsom Throughout the Years
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No Surprises at the Oscars
“Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?” Sandra Bullock’s first words as she accepted the Academy Award for best actress for her starring role in The Blind Side could have just as easily described the telecast that was “so long Avatar now takes place in the past.” Early favorites…
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Who You Calling a Bitch?
Ignoring the invention of the perm, black chicks are rarely—if ever—susceptible to magic. We don’t go up in pillars of smoke. We don’t disappear down suspect rabbit holes. And we don’t walk into coat closets, never to be heard from again. But somewhere along the journey from slave to soul sister to single lady, we…
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Oscar Night Highlights
Maybe Morgan Freeman, Gabourey Sidibe and Lee Daniels got robbed of top honors at the 82nd Academy Awards, but Mo’Nique was a winner on Oscar night. Among the highlights: *Mo’Nique wins best supporting actress for her performance in “Precious,” and gives props to Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Oscar, in her acceptance speech.*”Music by…
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Dear Academy: Give Richard Pryor the Lifetime Achievement Oscar
On the eve of the Academy Awards and on the heels of the utterly disappointing announcement that Marlon Wayans will play Richard Pryor in an upcoming biopic, I am here to make the case that Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III should receive a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts…
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Top Black Women Leaders, Past and Present
is an intern at The Root and senior journalism major at Howard University. Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Abolitionist and poet. Abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Abolitionist and commander of the Underground Railroad. Lawyer and first lady of the United States of America. Political analyst affiliated with the Democratic Party. Former congresswoman…
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Why Quentin Tarantino Will Not Win an Oscar
It is a cynical Hollywood wisdom that one cannot win at the Academy Awards against any well-made film focused on World War II and the crimes Nazi Germany committed against European Jews who were murdered on an industrial scale. Any reference to the Third Reich is ultimately an allusion to those murders. Given all that,…
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The Curious Case of Gabourey Sidibe
When Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe walks the red carpet Sunday night, all will judge how she looks in whatever she’s chosen to wear to the Oscars. People will stare, comment, smile and be polite – in public. We will hear commentators talk about her Precious role and sudden fame, maybe her mother, maybe something about the…
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How Black Women Became Powerful
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush held a closed-door meeting at the White House to discuss law and order after the race riots in Los Angeles. Bush and the other lawmakers in attendance received an unexpected visitor in Rep. Maxine Waters, then a freshman representative from South Central Los Angeles, who had invited herself into…
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RuPaul and O.J. Have Nothing in Common
Far be it from me to parse the motivations of the California schoolteachers who presented portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul during a Black History Month parade. Perhaps they were well-meaning, albeit misguided, in their efforts. Probably not. At any rate, there’s been (predictably) a great hue and cry from those charging that…
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Pay Up, Kwame
Sexting kills (your wallet and freedom sometimes) The state Court of Appeals today issued a defeat to ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s lawyers and ruled that a violation of probation hearing can proceed in Wayne County Circuit Court. Shortly after the ruling, Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, issued the following statement: “This…