culture
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Shit Might Hit the Fan in St. Louis Tomorrow
Chemists define an explosion as “a sudden, violent change of potential energy to work, which transfers to its surroundings in the form of a rapidly moving rise in pressure called a blast wave or shock wave. The shock wave can cause substantial damage.” I was there when Ferguson, Mo., exploded. When Officer Darren Wilson pumped…
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Mind Your Own Vagina: On Yvonne Orji, Adult Virgins and Personal Sexual Choices
When we say we want women to be free to make their own sexual choices, do we only mean that when the choice is one that we would make for ourselves? When we say that women should have agency over their own bodies, do we mean only if that agency is not influenced by other…
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Alt-White: On How White People Use Language to Deny the Existence of White Supremacy
Somewhere in the good ol’ book, there’s a saying that goes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Now, I’m about six years removed from my last Sunday school class, but I’m pretty sure this concept also applies to a fairly old concept: Language. Now, I am not here to recount the origins of language…
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How 3 Black Visionaries Are Bringing the Hood Into the Marijuana Industry
What if all the drug money made in black neighborhoods stayed in black neighborhoods? Even better, what if the people selling the weed in communities of color didn’t have to hide the money? What if they didn’t have to worry about being arrested three times more often than whites? What if the tax revenue for…
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It’s Michael Jackson’s Birthday: Are Your Favorite M.J. Songs on Our List?
On this day 59 years ago, the world was blessed with the birth of one Michael Joseph Jackson. From his humble beginnings in Gary, Ind., he would rise to a worldwide level of stardom that most entertainers can only hope to achieve. Eight years after he left us, his music lives on and continues to…
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The 5 Types of ‘Becky’
Becky: (noun); a white woman who uses her privilege as a weapon, a ladder or an excuse. Ex: “A random Becky hit me up on Twitter to explain why not all white women are racist.” What started as a controversial term for fellatio has blossomed into an all-encompassing term for a specific class of white…
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Race and Class Are the Biggest Issues Around Hurricane Harvey and We Need to Start Talking About Them
Our national conversation on Hurricane Harvey should be much like those about Charlottesville, Va., or Flint, Mich. But as the Houston area braces for much more flooding, that won’t happen until receding floodwaters reveal the dangerously gaping holes of disparity between white haves and black have-nots. Right now the nation just sees flooding and burly,…
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5 Questions the Game of Thrones Season Finale Answered for Black America
By now we shouldn’t have to discuss how Game of Thrones parallels the social, political and economic climate of black America. But this season, the show wasn’t just a metaphor for being black in America—it was a guide for survival. It was a parable about resistance. It was a preamble for the resistance (and by…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Ta-Nehisi Coates Wanted to Be ‘the Baddest Motherfucking Writer on the Planet’
It is a rare piece of long-form journalism that breaks the internet. But that’s exactly what happened when Ta-Nehisi Coates’ keen, decisive reportage, “The Case for Reparations,” dropped in June 2014, compelling the editors at The Root to give him that year’s No. 1 spot. Part of his The Root 100 bio read: Two years…