culture
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OneUnited Bank, Black Lives Matter Team Up to Organize Black America’s Spending Power
Elected officials, businesses and society in general can sometimes find it easy to overlook voices of protest that call for equality and justice. One thing that is seldom overlooked, however, is money, and black America has a lot of spending power to throw around—about $1.2 trillion. Now OneUnited Bank, the largest black-owned bank in America,…
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The Day My Mother Asked About My HIV Status Changed My Life
I will never forget the day my mother asked me, “Is there something you want me to know about you?” Mom wanted to know if I had HIV. She had just attended her first HIV educational program. She learned about the virus and how important being in care is to ensure that a person with…
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SNL and Melissa McCarthy Are Becoming Anti-Trump Heroes
On paper it doesn’t seem like a likely pairing to have Melissa McCarthy playing White House press secretary Sean “Spicy Facts” Spicer on Saturday Night Live, but it worked beautifully. Somehow, some way, the sketch-comedy show has a direct line to the White House’s insecurities, and it’s pissing off the president and his staff. Shortly…
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Stream of Consciousness: Stay Woke for Black History Month With Netflix and Hulu
The TV powers that be have finally seen the light that black on-screen makes green. However, it was the brilliance of the internet not only to know this first but also to bring it to you in various packages, for your viewing pleasure, at your own convenience. Online-streaming services like Netflix made it easy for…
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The National Interest: All Money Ain’t Good Money: The Role of White Foundations in Social Justice Movements
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. There are wealthy white philanthropists in every city saying that they want to change urban education, but few are able to save their own organizations from whiteness. That’s because…
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Jemele Hill and Michael Smith Are Taking Over SportsCenter, and Somewhere, Stuart Scott Is Smiling
Even if you aren’t the biggest sports fan, you may have heard of Michael Smith and Jemele Hill. His & Hers, which began as a podcast conceived and hosted by Smith and Hill, proved so popular that in 2014 it replaced the ESPN2 show Numbers Never Lie, which Smith began co-hosting with Charissa Thompson in…
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Living With History: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington Heir Saw the Burden and Beauty of His Ancestors’ Legacies
Editor’s note: For Black History Month, The Root is speaking to the relatives of our most cherished African-American heroes in a series called Living With History. Today we feature Kenneth B. Morris Jr., a descendant of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and educator Booker T. Washington, and spoke to him about how the family are keeping their…
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Kassandra Frederique, Drug Policy Alliance’s Black History Month Series Visionary, Talks Owning Our Narratives [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.