Frank Sinatra, Other Anti-Racist Icons Who Were Down For Black Folks
Internet Is Divided Over Toddler’s Perfect, Sexy Catwalk
15 Incidents That Remind Us How Close We Still Are To Jim Crow America
Legal Experts: How U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling on ‘Reverse Discrimination’ Will Make Things Worse For Black Americans
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Obama Admits Racial Profiling Has Gone Amok
Let’s be clear about something. Most African-Americans do not wake up in the morning looking for racism. Most African-Americans don’t begin their days with a shower, a coffee, and then a calculated plan to seek out racist activity. It usually comes to us. Packaged in institutional and historical bravado or endearing quietness. We’re the ones…
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A Dull Shade of 'Black'
Maybe it was just dumb luck, but CNN’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. But, of course, the deep thinkers at CNN didn’t predict the future by airing its “Black in America 2” documentary just when the nation’s attention is focused on big national news involving black story lines: No. 1—President Obama, the first U.S.…
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'Black in America 2' in Review
What does being black in America mean today? Does CNN’s ambitious program break the surface in explaining the black experience? Join The Root staff and readers as we partner with Black Web 2.0 to discuss “Black in America 2” with a panel of young professionals and academics. The second segment of “Black in America 2”…
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Cambridge, Mississippi, Circa 1959
I was lying in my hospital bed in Boston when I got an e-mail from someone making an oblique reference to the arrest of Skip Gates. I thought the writer was mistaken and wrote back saying, “But Skip is in China.” I couldn’t believe there was anything under the sun that would lead to Skip…
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Guess Who's Live Tweeting 'Black in America 2' Tonight?
Here is the low-down: Tonight, The Root and Black Web 2.0 are hosting an event in D.C. to screen and discuss CNN’s “Black in America 2.” Check out our Facebook page: The event will be from 8-10pm. We’ll be featuring a panel of young, black professionals, 30 and under, to weigh in with their thoughts…
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Obama Says Officer 'Acted Stupidly' in Arrest of Skip Gates
Given President Barack Obama’s reluctance to dwell on the issue of race in America, it was a surprise to hear the president’s forceful comments on last week’s controversial arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Root’s editor-in-chief. At the close of his prime-time press conference on health care Wednesday, the president addressed the touchy issue…
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I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write You a Letter)
Recently, I came across some old letters I wrote a friend back in the day. There were several, and as I read them, memories came flooding back. Funny enough, I could still smell the cologne that he sprayed on a few (we were young). But then I tried to remember the last time that I…
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And Sonia Laughed: NY Judge Finds NYFD Exam Discriminatory Against Blacks, Hispanics
From The AP: NEW YORK — A federal judge has ruled that the predominantly white Fire Department of New York used recruitment exams that discriminate against blacks and Hispanics. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled against New York City on Wednesday, finding that the discrimination occurred in written exams given to thousands of firefighter candidates…
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Toward a More Perfect Union?
I watched Barack Obama’s “Toward A More Perfect Union” in my living room, on a laptop computer with tinny speakers. Like millions of other Americans, I felt a surge of amazement, a sense of expanding possibility, at the sheer fact that a black man with a good chance of becoming president was speaking about race…