culture
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LaVar Ball—His Team and His Mouth—Shut Down by Compton, 109-57
Known loudmouth LaVar Ball got his comeuppance from the city of Compton, Calif., on Saturday—and NBA star James Harden was there to see the whole thing. Ball’s AAU basketball team—the Big Ballers, which his oldest son, LaMelo, plays for—got crushed 109-57 by the Compton Magic at the Magic Memorial Day Festival in Southern California, according…
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Black Codes and Dress Codes: Will Black Hair Always Be Against the Rules?
Graduation season is here—that time of year when we get to celebrate academic achievements, watch with anticipation as the graduates move on to life’s next step, and hear about all the students being banned from prom and graduation for dress code violations. As a jolting end to that list, we’re hearing more stories of students…
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Master of None’s Lena Waithe on Coming Out in the ‘Thanksgiving’ Episode: ‘It Was Really Important to Get This Right’
When Master of None’s Lena Waithe shared her coming-out story with the show’s writers’ room, she never thought it would ever end up as an episode, let alone one of the Netflix series’ most memorable episodes to date. “I was just talking about my own struggles coming out to my mother. I didn’t think anything…
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Not Without a Fight: Black Women Are Taking Up Arms to Protect Themselves
Twenty-five-year-old Marchelle Tigner has been a victim, and she refuses to be a victim ever again. “I’m a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, and I feel like what else is there that I could do other than this to impact all these people’s lives and help them and make sure no other woman…
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Tupac’s Godfather, Jamal Joseph, on His Journey From Panther to Political Prisoner to Film Director
Writer, director and activist Jamal Joseph was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. At 16 years old, he was arrested in the Panther 21 case along with Afeni Shakur, the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur. The Panther 21 case was designed to wipe out the New York Black Panther…
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Ky. to Close Juvenile Detention Center Where 16-Year-Old Gynnya McMillen Was Found Dead
The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice announced on Wednesday that the Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center—where 16-year-old Gynnya McMillen was found dead in her cell on Jan. 11, 2016, after four staff members pinned her down with an Aikido martial arts restraint hold—will close in mid-June. CBS News reports that the department attributes the closure…
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Unique Views, Episode 44: White Slavery and America’s White Lies
White slavery. The phrase and even the idea of it sounds funny, but this episode of The Root’s podcast, Unique Views—soon to be called The Haters—is serious. A Handmaid’s Tale, on Hulu, looks at what would happen if, in a futuristic world, women, mostly white women, became indentured servants. Of course, my co-host, The Root’s…
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The Killing of Richard Collins III Is Not a Hate Crime—It’s Terrorism
The death of a young student just reaching his prime is always tragic. The death of a young black man, especially one only days away from college graduation, is an enormous heartbreak. But the death of a young black man allegedly at the hands of a suspected white supremacist, brutally stabbed merely for being black,…
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Sean Hannity Is a Lying, Sick Sack of Stupid
Of all the reasons to loathe that noxious loudmouth Sean Hannity, my top choice is that the Fox News host consistently has the nerve to serve his lavish amount of stupidity with sides of hubris and sanctimony. Shortly before going on vacation, Hannity did an interview with the Huffington Post and pretended that his peddling…
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Sometimes, Staying Woke Means Staying Away
Waking up to tragedies of some measure has become the norm over the years. Lately it feels as if every day there’s another hashtag created to expose our worst fears or break what’s left of our hearts. I wasn’t clear on what had happened; all I saw were the hashtags floating down the page. My…