culture
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Watch: Issa Rae: ‘We Will Find a Way to Shine’
Black and Proud is a video series on The Root that focuses on the pride that our favorite black celebrities, tastemakers and thought leaders feel about being black. Many of them talk about our resilience and strength throughout history, and some talk about our undeniable talents, while others mention our dance skills, dopeness and more.…
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Join The Root in Miami for a Discussion on How Climate Change Is Affecting Black Communities
For years, gentrification has been changing and reshaping black communities across the country. But in Miami, gentrification includes another factor: climate change. In South Florida—where people of color were redlined into less valuable areas, away from the sandy, tropical beaches—sea levels are rising faster than normal, bringing regular coastal flooding. Now real estate investors and…
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Mented Cosmetics Has the Perfect Lip Gloss for Women of Color
Earlier this summer, The Root highlighted New York City-based Mented Cosmetics and its endeavors to create nude lipsticks for women of color. The black-woman-owned company now has a new lip-gloss line that’s sure to rival its lipsticks. Harvard Business School grads K.J. Miller and Amanda E. Johnson are the women behind Mented, and in a…
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Washed-Up Confederate-Flag Waver Who Stole Black Music Says ‘Fuck Colin Kaepernick’
You know how sometimes you forget a person’s name even though you can see his or her face in your mind’s eye? How you can remember everything about the person, except his or her name? That’s the exact state of mental purgatory in which I find myself as I write this. I’m sure it’ll come…
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Why Aren’t White Supremacists on the Terror Watch List?
On Feb. 11, 2016, federal agents escorted 38-year-old Safya Roe Yassin out of her Buffalo, Mo., home and charged her with multiple terror-related crimes that could ultimately result in five years’ imprisonment, three years’ supervised release and $250,000 in fines. Yassin’s charging documents (pdf) reveal how she operated multiple social media accounts that sympathized with…
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And They Say Chi City …
Some people just aren’t built to be rock stars. The big audiences, the grueling travel, the long stretches away from home, living out of suitcases and a new city almost every night … it takes a lot out of the most stable among us. In the early 2000s, I was touring with the national company…
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What White Men Fear Most Is Coming to Pass … They’re Being Erased. Isn’t That Ironic?
Every day, since Heather Heyer lost her life at the hands of white supremacists, and our president abdicated his moral authority by not thoroughly condemning them, America and its politicians seem to have grown a conscience (or a pair). Since the carnage of Charlottesville, Va., politicians, especially those who once sought to drill down on…
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Black Women and Girls May Run the World, but They’re Not Safe in It
In black America during the 1970s, the portraits of MLK, JFK and Jesus hung on every family’s wall. Today, the new trinity of Oprah, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama could almost replace them. But the increasing power and cultural influence of black women don’t equal protection. Black women’s accomplishments, despite their continuing struggle, illuminate how sexist…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Ben Jealous, a Supreme Builder of Bridges Over Left and Right
Benjamin Todd Jealous first made a national name for himself in 2008 when, at age 35, he became the youngest leader of one of America’s oldest and most esteemed civil rights bodies, the NAACP. Before Jealous began his five-year tenure of the then-99-year-old organization, it was clear that the NAACP had calcified into a shell…