culture
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Cedric Robinson, Author of Black Marxism, Died This Month to Little Fanfare, but Not Before He Changed My Life
I know that many are given to hyperbole upon learning that a person they revere has gone to be with the ancestors, but it is not an overstatement to say that Cedric Robinson, who passed away on June 5, truly changed my life. I was a graduate student in 2006 when I came across a…
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Andre Williams, No. 44 of NY Giants, Tackles Fatherhood and Serves Food for Thought
Andre Williams is a running back for the New York Giants, but none of the hard knocks on the football field could have prepared him for perhaps his most challenging matchup yet: fatherhood. In February, Williams and his wife welcomed their firstborn, Barron Zavier Williams. On the cusp of his third pro-football season, The Root caught…
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Adios, House of Lies. Thanks for All the Good Times!
It’s been a good run for Don Cheadle as the cool yet complicated management consultant Marty Kaan on Showtime’s hit series House of Lies. Marty helped Cheadle pick up four NAACP Image Award nominations, including two wins (2013, 2016); three Golden Globe nominations, including one win (2013); and four Emmy nominations. That’s in addition to…
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How One Woman Created a Safe Haven for Multicultural Women in Business
When it comes to certain jobs and areas of business, women are still grossly underrepresented—doubly so for women of color. As a result, oftentimes, when we interact in these spaces, we tend to put on a different face: always on, always on point, always showing up 110 percent. That, admittedly, becomes exhausting. So the next…
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The ‘Ghost’ of O.J. Simpson Still Haunts Us
Every single time O.J. Simpson appears on the television screen, I wind up remembering that he is still alive. That after all he has gone through, O.J. is not yet at the point where white people are spitting and urinating on his grave. The latest time this happened was just Friday, the day of Muhammad…
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White Privilege Isn’t Tainting the Criminal-Justice System. It Is the Criminal-Justice System
A lot of people are saying that white privilege is rampant within the criminal-justice system. Let me correct that. White privilege is the criminal-justice system. And the recent case involving a privileged college student convicted of sexual assault with a whiny father is just one of many of white men getting the benefit of the…
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It’s Easier to Blame Hip-Hop for Concert Shootings Than It Is to Address America’s Violence
As common as death by gun in America is, the hand that holds the gun often defines how those deaths are depicted. So it was not surprising to see the kind of reaction generated by one man being killed and three people being wounded at a T.I. concert in New York City recently. It concerned…
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A Nude Snapchat Video and Cyberbullying Lead to Teen’s Suicide
A Florida teenager committed suicide last week because of cyberbullying. Tovanna Holton, 15, was recorded by a “friend” while bathing, according to the Daily Beast. Without Tovanna’s permission, the friend uploaded the video to Snapchat, where viewers took screenshots and began to post the images on other social media platforms. One of the viewers was…
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10 Possible Demographics for Steph Curry’s Ridiculously Ugly Curry 2 Low ‘Chef’ Sneakers
NBA MVP Stephen Curry should be on cloud nine right now. He’s leading a team favored to win the NBA Finals; he has a beautiful family, including a wife who’s definitely putting in that “dual income” work; and he reportedly inked a deal with Under Armour that’s worth nine figures. And, according to something I…