culture
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White America Must Heal Itself: 2016 Is 1965 and 1984
Last weekend, during a writing retreat, I ended up in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Iowa entered the Union as a free state and was a hub for the Underground Railroad, but I wasn’t surprised to see a handful of Confederate flags flying from homes as I drove through towns called Solon and North Liberty. Ours has…
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The Root’s Young Futurists, Where Are They Now: Keke Palmer
Actress and singer Lauren Keyana Palmer—better known as Keke Palmer—has quite the résumé. And the 23-year-old continues to work on her craft. Palmer was a member of the cast of Grease: Live, which aired on Fox in January. She went on to release her reflective album, Waited to Exhale, in June 2016. And Palmer is due to release…
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Singer and Charlotte, NC, Native Anthony Hamilton: ‘We Are Fed Up’ With Injustice
There is turmoil across the nation. The time is now to use our voices to insist on change. Unfortunately, people with closed minds label us racists because we want our black men, women and children not to be gunned down like savages. Although slavery was technically abolished more than a century ago, let me remind…
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6 Reasons Why Black Women Have Every Right to Be Angry
I don’t have OWN on my cable package anymore, so it’s taken me a bit of time to catch up on my favorite show, Iyanla: Fix My Life. The season has started with a four-part special that finds spiritual healer Iyanla Vanzant addressing “the myth of the angry black woman” and orchestrating a house of…
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Baseball Player Tweets Racist Message, Then Pulls Apology Out of the 'I'm Not a Racist' Handbook: Examined
Updated Friday, Sept. 23, 2016, 2:42 p.m. EDT: The Seattle Mariners have suspended Steve Clevenger for the remainder of the 2016 season without pay. Clevenger spent Thursday tweeting out vile messages about Keith Lamont Scott, who was gunned down by Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., police, and those who have been protesting his death. In theory, the suspension sounds…
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So, Richard ‘All Lives Matter’ Sherman, Now You Want to Speak Out on Police Violence?
So, Mr. All Lives Matter—Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman—decided that he was gonna use his latest press conference to do nothing but talk about police violence. “I think the last couple days, a couple more guys have gotten shot and killed in the middle of the street. More videos have come out of guys getting…
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Empire Recap: Who Died? And Did Anyone Care?
The season 2 Empire finale was an episode packed with surprises. We learned that Lucious isn’t the devil’s spawn. His father was Joe, a cop, whom Lucious saw gunned down when he was a child. Empire has played fast and loose with flashbacks, so don’t be shocked if Joe rises from the grave just like…
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7 Black Movies to See if You Can’t Bear to See Birth of a Nation (or Even if You Do)
Ever since Nate Parker’s film The Birth of a Nation earned a record $17.5 million distribution deal and walked away with the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, the movie has been positioned as the film most likely to solve Hollywood’s #OscarsSoWhite problem. But Parker’s past…
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Meet the Black Geniuses of 2016
Joyce J. Scott was an artist in utero. She will tell you that while she was safely inside the womb, her mother, an internationally recognized fiber artist, was nourishing her with colors and patterns and craft. Scott wanted nothing more than to be who she has become—a multitalented, multimedium, multipersonality spitfire of a performer. She…
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If America Treated Racism the Way It Treats Terrorism
As soon as America caught wind of the makeshift bombs that exploded in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota this weekend, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly assembled the media and held a press conference, pleading for calm while authorities investigated the incidents. Along with the usual fear and outrage came calls from…