culture
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Trump’s Favorite News Outlet Is Not Who You Think … and You Should Be Worried
What if Breitbart and Fox News had a couple of babies? What if they grew up to be a cool, slicker version of their parents and started becoming more powerful? Imagine if the young FoxBarts branded themselves as mainstream sources, but instead of courting “alt-right” white males and older conservatives, they focused their efforts on…
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On Whole Foods, Gentrification and the Erasure of Black Harlem
Bye-bye, black Harlem, glad I knew ye. Hello, Whole Foods, I do enjoy your products, but if you can gentrify greens, what chance do we really have? I first moved to Harlem in 1998. I was a young single mother in graduate school with a 2-year-old. Harlem offered me respite, refuge and safety in blackness…
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Procter & Gamble Release an Ad About ‘the Talk,’ and White People Respond With the Wettest, Saltiest, Stupidest White Tears Ever
The talk is literally a talk many black parents have with their children to inform them of the dangers of “existing while black” and the myriad things out there actively trying to kill us. Well, those. And racism. And the police. And America. And Darth Beckys, Darth Susans and Darth Chads. And mysterious casseroles left…
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It’s Official: White Allies Are the Worst Wypipo in the World
Today we celebrate the winner of the 2017 World Wypipo Tournament. While many worthy competitors stepped into the arena for a chance at fame, glory and dishonor, there could be only one champion. This year, one great team rose above them all. One lone competitor entered the fray and emerged more despicable than the rest.…
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The Fact That Bobby Valentino May Not Have Paid a Sex Worker Is a Problem; the Fact That the Sex Worker Is Trans Is Not
On July 31, a transgender sex worker recorded R&B singer Bobby Valentino running out of a room after allegedly not paying for sexual services. Valentino has since denied the accusation and stated, through his representative, “Misrepresentation and deception were maliciously used to target [him]; during the encounter, Valentino was victimized and threatened by acts of…
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The Real Reason the Ravens Are Afraid to Hire Kaepernick: He’s Mr. Steal-Your-Job
The good news is that Baltimore’s unemployment rate is a breathtakingly low 6.1 percent in August of 2017; the bad news is, there’s one job applicant who just can’t seem to get a break in Charm City: Colin Kaepernick. News broke this week that because starting quarterback Joe Flacco suffered a back injury, the Baltimore…
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Okra Is Garbage and Zoodles Are Lies: GMG Staffers Share Their ‘Unpopular Opinions’ on Healthy Eats
This is Unpopular Opinions, a weekly romp through the Gizmodo Media Group staff’s personal Slack conversations that boldly reveal scandalous opinions that many would deem unpopular. So, basically it’s a conversation that proclaims, We schaid what we schaid. Everybody and their mamas have either seen or have plans to see What the Health, a documentary…
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Someone Trolled Me With Racist Emails for a Week, and It Brought Me So Much Joy!
A few weeks ago, we began the inaugural Wypipo World Tournament that pitted the worst wypipo in the world against one another. When this idea first emerged, there was a very intense meeting that ended—as most meetings at The Root do—with, “OK, Mike, you piss wypipo off all the time. You do it.” I didn’t…
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Trans Black Women Are Petitioning Charlamagne tha God Over Transphobic Comments on Show
The only way to convince Charlamagne tha God to stop allowing transphobia on his show is to threaten his job security, as far as black transgender female activists I spoke with are concerned. And, while, no, Charlamagne didn’t talk about killing trans women, Ashlee Marie Preston said that Charlamagne was the ringleader of Lil Duval’s…
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#SafetyIs: Night Out for Safety and Liberation Happening Tonight
For working-class and poor black and brown communities in the United States of America, the concept of safety—particularly when it is dependent on hypermilitarized police forces—is a flimsy, dangerous illusion. One move, one word—or no moves and no words—standing, running, driving or breathing have all been charges leveled against black and brown people and deemed…