culture
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Hip-Hop’s Best Year Ever Just Turned 20
It should come as no surprise to most of you that I wasn’t the most popular kid in high school. During my 1995-1996 freshman year, I endured an awkward, postpubescent, pre-growth-spurt phase that had me looking like the love child of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Associate Bob from Demolition Man. Making matters worse,…
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The 10 Types of Hate Mail Every Black Writer Receives
One of the few silver linings from the last two weeks of police-involved violence is that some genuinely brilliant and fearless and incisive and resonate work from black writers has sprung from it. Making this particularly impressive is that they’ve found ways to distill, craft and articulate unique angles and relevant points while still processing…
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Killsplaining: Whether White Supremacist Cop or Wayward Teen, No One Asks to Be Murdered
We are starting to become a nation of excuses. A nation that shoots first and then looks through your personnel file to explain away why the shooting was valid. I am not a fan of uncovering the past of a person who was unjustifiably killed. If a person is killed by a rogue police officer…
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212 Slaves Died on the São José Ship; This New Exhibit Will Share Their Story
Paul Gardullo lifted an iron ballast from a Portuguese slave ship that sank in 1794 out of a crate Wednesday morning and hefted its weight in his hands. “Anytime I come into contact with the objects from the São José, it’s an incredibly moving experience,” said the curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American…
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Racism Is Not Hate
I have a cousin named Jerry*. He is 10 years older than I am. He was a virtuoso drummer who you would have been willing to swear had four arms and three feet if you had ever heard him play. He became a prodigy on the piano even though he never owned a keyboard. He…
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To Black Church Folks Just Waking Up: A Welcome and a Warning
The past few weeks have been rough. We are dying daily, and yet many of you have been sound asleep. You saw Mike Mike’s body lying in the middle of Canfield Green in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, but you did not “cry aloud and spare not.” Some of you prayed, and others recited…
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5 Things That Show America Has Gotten Worse Since Dallas Shootings
It has been less than a week since the “newsplosion” of the police-shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and the ambush of five Dallas police officers, and America is still in recovery mode. There have been the obligatory calls for healing, ubiquitous photos of black people hugging white police officers and a few…
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The 8 Wokest White People We Know
#Woke is having a moment. As The Root contributor Lawrence Ware notes, because of police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, “The masses of black folks who were lulled to sleep by economic opportunity have now awoken to the fact that race is, and will remain, a central part of the black experience.” But…
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The Politics of Being Woke
“Who polices the woke?” The question caught me off guard. My line brother posed it to me as I was on my way to a meeting. We are members of the first historically black Greek collegiate fraternity and are called line brothers because we joined at the same time. He called with a question that,…
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Can The Preachers Be Saved?
Does the world need a saved version of The Real? According to Jamal Bryant, a co-host of The Preachers, “There’s never been more of a need for a show like this.” The faith-based panel show, currently on a three-week test run in New York and Los Angeles, features “four outspoken preachers known for their unique takes on…