culture
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Ava DuVernay Is Making a Miniseries on the Central Park Five for Netflix
Ava DuVernay has agreed to write and direct a five-part miniseries with Netflix about the infamous case of five young men who were wrongly accused and convicted of a gruesome rape in New York City’s Central Park in 1989, according to the Hollywood Reporter. This is DuVernay’s second project with Netflix, after 2016’s Oscar-nominated documentary…
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Spider-Man: Homecoming Diversity Push Makes No Spidey-Sense
Spider-Man: Homecoming has a lot of heavy lifting to do for one movie. It has to continue the Marvel Cinematic Universe, be a good Spider-Man movie after three straight critical flops and introduce Marvel’s new phase of casting “diversity.” Does it succeed? Not really. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a fun movie, and a decent continuation of…
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From Fear to Fortitude: One Woman’s Fight for Black Boys a Year Later
This time last year, I was curled up in a ball on my bed, in tears and feeling frustrated, angry and afraid. I was suffering from a condition I coined called “MOBB disorder,” the seemingly irrational fear of a mom of a black boy that he will be unfairly stopped, harassed, brutalized or killed by…
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The Root Is Gaining 2 Very Smart Brothas
True story: I’ve known the founders of VSB, aka the blog Very Smart Brothas, for a minute. They are my friends, fellow black-blog pioneers who hopped into the game in 2008 and revolutionized and remixed it to the degree that their greatness had to be acknowledged. And that greatness is coming to The Root. VSB…
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Jagged Edge May Be Unsung, but They Haven’t Stopped Singing Yet
Twins Brian and Brandon Casey, along with their friends Richard Wingo and Kyle Norman, made up the 1990s R&B group Jagged Edge. Unlike boy groups like New Edition or Jodeci, the individual members didn’t become household names or branch out into solo careers, but their sound was so unusual that even traditional R&B balladeers like…
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Dear NBC: A Slave Cannot Be a ‘Mistress’
There are times when black America’s feathers are ruffled, and our reaction does not come from anger or aggravation but from wonder. Even though many of our bruises have calloused over, every now and then someone will stick us in the exact right spot, and when we feel the pinprick, instead of getting mad, we…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Ancestor Deported to Ghana?
A series of run-ins with law enforcement in the United Kingdom splits a family apart. Now the family is seeking answers. Dear Professor Gates: I’m trying to trace my great-grandfather, whose name was either David Sebe Agyemah Darku or David Sebe Agyeman Darku. He was sent to jail in England for a high-profile crime involving…
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Philando Castile, the War on Drugs and the Lynching of Black Humanity [Retracted]
RETRACTED (6/12/18): This story has been removed because we have discovered it was in breach of our editorial standards. If you’d like to know more, you can read an editor’s note here. A cached version of the story is available here for transparency.
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Doc Rivers and the Los Angeles Clippers: Are a Man’s Pride and a Father’s Love Ruining a Basketball Franchise?
Let me preface all of this by saying that I am a diehard Los Angeles Lakers fan. The Clippers will always be the JV squad in this city, and everyone knows it. It doesn’t matter how close they get to winning a championship or how bad a season the Lakers are having—this city rides for…
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A Comprehensive Guide to Sending and Receiving Nudes
“Love is blind, but just in case, send nudes.” —ancient African proverb I may have added that last part, but we now live in a world where pictures are worth a thousand texts, and apparently people can send and receive nude photographs on their phones. (I know using the word “photographs” makes me sound ancient,…