culture
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Watch: Hashtag Revolution: 16-Year-Old Girl Teaches Only Lesson You’ll Ever Need About #Melanin
Hashtags have defined pop culture. You spot them all over social media, and now many of them have become popular phrases, especially when they highlight blackness: #BlackBoyJoy, #BlackLivesMatter, #GrowingUpBlack, and the list goes on. #Melanin is a shining example of a hashtag-turned-movement. Not only is it a fresh and delicious word to use in place…
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Watch Out Loud: What Is #BlackBoyJoy and Why Do We Need It?
I was obsessed with Chance the Rapper after watching him live his unapologetic best life at the 2016 Video Music Awards on MTV. He stuck to my rib so much, I asked my managing editor, Danielle Belton, if I could write about him. She obliged my random request. Not only did I write about Chance…
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. Named Goodwill Ambassador in Global Fight for Rights of People of African Descent
While we focus on the history and legacy of slavery in the United States, it is sometimes easy to forget that the forced deportation of people of African descent is an international, cross-cultural experience that extends across borders. On April 4, in a first-of-its-kind ceremony at Harvard University, organizations dedicated to the recognition, justice and…
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Whites Need to Understand That White Supremacy Hurts Them, Too
Two weeks ago, I logged into my email to read a note written by the headmaster of my daughters’ school about the white supremacist terrorist who traveled to New York from Baltimore—one of the blackest cities on the East Coast—to find a black man to kill. The note said this terrorist had graduated from my…
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The Top 10 Tools for Fighting Racism According to Wypipo
Every few months for the past … oh, let’s say 450-odd years, black people in America have endured a particularly brutal but seldom-discussed form of torture. We all know about the historical travesties of slavery, Jim Crow and systemic racism, but there is another hardship that Africans in America bravely withstand every day with very…
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Eat, Pray, Love Your Way Through the US Virgin Islands
The history of the U.S. Virgin Islands is filled with stories of survival, perseverance and pride. And when you visit St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, that history is contained within every step you take. It’s been 100 years since the islands became a U.S. territory, and tourism is a huge part of the…
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No, Lee Daniels, We Don’t Need Another Movie About the Down Low
Lee Daniels recently announced the premise behind his upcoming remake of the ’80s sentimental classic Terms of Endearment. In the original, Debra Winger’s character dies of cancer, but in this filmmaker’s version, which also will feature Oprah Winfrey, one of the leads will have AIDS—a disease she contracted by having sex with a man who…
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Black Identity Isn’t the Only Thing Rachel Dolezal Stole
I remember, with painful clarity, the time I ached to be white. I mean that literally, by the way. I stuck a clothespin on my nose when I was about 6 years old, hoping to shape that flat, Filipino knob of flesh into a more aquiline point. That shit hurt and, even worse, it didn’t…
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Watch: Black Trans Women Are Dying
Woman is the nigger of the world. —John Lennon This loaded song lyric is not only a manifestation of a Yoko Ono-hypnotized John Lennon, but a statement that stops you in your tracks. If that’s the case, then what of black women? Moreover, what of transgender women, and to take it even further—what of black…
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Unique Views, Episode 37: Can Johnny Gill and His Vocal Talent Win a Grammy Already?!
The reason I allow my pod mate, Stephen A. Crockett Jr. the third, to write the posts for The Root’s podcast episodes is that I literally do everything else. But, then I got the chance to read said posts. And though I’m not shocked that Crockett has been dragging my beautiful name through the mud,…