culture
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Happy Anniversary, White Supremacy!
Because many people have accused The Root of not being inclusive and focusing on issues of race too much, please allow us to extend our most heartfelt, warmest wishes on this—your day of celebration. As Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama celebrate Confederate Memorial Day (which I have long proposed be renamed “White Tear-mas”—because who else but…
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Adrien Broner Is Boxing With Death and I Hope He’s Got Another Round in Him
It’s time for Adrien Broner to grow up and get serious about his boxing gift before it’s too late. The former four-division titlist at one time appeared to be the heir to Floyd Mayweather’s throne, but a series of arrests, allegations and, not to mention, losses inside the ring have dashed such hopes. Last week…
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Courtney B. Vance’s Small but Mighty Role in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks premieres April 22 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO, and I’ll be tuned in because it’s that good. I’m not just saying that because I had an otherworldly experience with one of the stars of the film, Oprah Winfrey, this week. It’s honestly worth watching more than once, and…
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For the Henrietta Lacks Family, It’s a Matter of Who Gets to Tell Their Story
Who can tell your family’s story? That’s one of the key issues the book and now HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, raises. It’s one that Henrietta Lacks’ son Lawrence and his son, Ron, have been asking for some time now. Henrietta Lacks is the woman whose cells, named HeLa, were able to…
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Earth Day 2017: Ex-Environmental Justice Chief for EPA on Using Your Power to Save the Planet
Long before Mustafa Santiago Ali helped establish one of our nation’s most esteemed federal programs, he was a child raised in a Baptist and Pentecostal church. He was born in a family passionate about social justice and civil rights, and his faith laid the foundation for a life of giving back. “It’s really important that…
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Earth Day 2017: 3 Environmental-Justice Groups That Are Putting Up a Good Fight in Trump’s America
In the United States, race is the dominant factor when it comes to living in a toxic environment because black, brown and poor people are more likely to live in polluted communities with contaminated water, dirty air and toxic waste. Seeing that our 45th president is indifferent to climate change and thinks that shutting down…
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Assigning Value to Black Stories: Minority Art and the Racist Mountain
Comedian, writer and filmmaker Jordan Peele recently offered the hope that the success of his low-budget but high-profit film, Get Out, would convince Hollywood producers that “black voices … tell good stories like anyone else.” It is, frankly, startling that after two centuries of the African-American presence in theater, film, television and music, black artists…
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Unique Views, Episode 39: Shaolin Fantastic Came to Get Down
I don’t like to brag, but during the ’80s I was quite the break-dancer, so having The Get Down star Shameik Moore, who played Shaolin Fantastic, on the show this week was right in my wheelhouse. I am a hip-hop aficionado. Don’t believe me? Just go back and listen to the episodes with me and…
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Nothing Can Prepare You for How Powerful The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Is
Writers tell stories in hopes that not only are they read but they also come to life. This is what has happened to Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which chronicles the tragic tale of Lacks, a 31-year-old black woman from Clover, Va., whose terminal-cancer diagnosis and undying cells ended up changing…