culture
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We Need to Talk About Being Mary Jane
Mary Jane Paul has always been a mess, but her many, many faults are what made Being Mary Jane such an interesting watch. As Kelley Carter wrote in the 2015 BuzzFeed piece “BET’s ‘Being Mary Jane’ Has Started a TV Revolution,” the show was a “revolutionary series about a perfectly imperfect single black woman.” Those…
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Michael Bennett Sat During the National Anthem Because He Loves America
My mother loves Michael Harriot. I know this, not because she has told me thousands of times, but because she has loved me. She kisses me on my cheek. She hugs me tighter than Young Thug wears his skinny jeans. We have long, meandering phone conversations. She praises me for every little thing I do…
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With Domestic Terrorism in Charlottesville, Va., Betsy DeVos Fails to Recognize a Teachable Moment
President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos didn’t wholeheartedly renounce white supremacy over the weekend, but teachers must. James Alex Fields Jr., the driver who allegedly plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, killing one and injuring at least a dozen more, had spouted Nazi ideology in high school, according…
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No, Open and Nonmonogamous Relationships Are Not Just for White People
Show of hands: Who here was raised to believe that the only healthy, positive relationships are ones that are monogamous, just one-on-one? Now a show of hands: Who here thinks monogamy is bullshit? Many of us were raised on the idea that we would grow up and find one person whom we would marry and…
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For Black People Who Have to Deal With White People This Week
Bruh (and when I say “bruh,” I don’t mean it in a sexist, gender-erasing way. I mean it as an introductory phrase, like how people from Florida start their sentence with “Fam,” or people from New York start their sentences with “Son” and end them with “B.” Or how people from everywhere start their sentences…
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Here’s a Cookie
Wow. I guess a hit dog will holler. When I wrote this on Sunday regarding the gaggle of white people online who turned the carnage of Charlottesville, Va., into a contest to prove they’re not terrible, I was surprised that so many white people would interpret this to mean I was talking about all white…
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Game of Thrones Shows Us How America Treats White Supremacy
Every time I watch an episode of Game of Thrones, I am left uttering the same phrase as the proverbial man who believes the thermos is the greatest invention of all time because it keeps hot things hot and cold things cold: “How do it know?” Indeed, how do it know? How does “Dem Thrones”…
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On Loving White People and Hating Whiteness
“There is a difference between loving white people and loving whiteness.” This is something I often say when I begin social justice conversations around topics related to race. For some, the concept is easy to process and we begin a conversation around what it means to be white and a person of privilege. For others,…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Melissa Harris-Perry Lets the World Know She Is Not Your Mammy
The indomitable Melissa Harris-Perry, once the voice of the weekends through her two-hour show on MSNBC—at once ritual before brunch or church or work and a much-needed respite from the unceasing whiteness of political punditry—gave us #Nerdland, that delicious slice of TV that wasn’t white-centered, wasn’t male-centered and was here for all the blerds who…
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Ice-T on Why He’s Hip-Hop’s Unsung O.G.
Most Law & Order junkies and millennials probably only know Ice-T affectionately as the gruff, no-nonsense NYPD Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But the rapper Ice-T came well before his nearly 20-year run on the television show. The story of Ice-T the rapper, including his crime-ridden days and his…