culture
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We're Being Too Hard on Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
Racism is so embedded in Southern culture that Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith truly believes that she’s not racist; that her comment about being front row at lynching were not racist; that wanting to suppress the liberal vote is not necessarily racist or posing in Confederate artifacts is racist. Wait, what? On Tuesday, the same day…
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Jemele Hill and ESPN Get It Over With: Report
Jemele Hill, a black woman who remained so while on television, had a rough go of it at ESPN in the fallout of calling Donald Trump, a sho nuff white supremacist, just that. She’s reportedly set to completely sever ties with the company at the beginning of September. Hill’s commentary is just too direct for…
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Come Through, Comic-Con! How Celebs Turned Up for the World's Best Known Comic Convention
In case you didn’t get the memo, Comic-Con isn’t just for cosplay—or even just for comics. Celebs and fans of all types of pop-cultural phenomenons descended on the convention’s West Coast event in San Diego, Ca. from July 19-22 to attend panels, rubs elbows with their faves, and, or course, dress up to celebrate all…
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Joe Jackson, Controversial Patriarch of a Musical Dynasty, Has Died at 89
Joseph Walter Jackson, who aspired to be a musician himself, instead became the mastermind behind the most successful musical family in pop history, attracting much controversy along the way. He died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles, according to TMZ. He was 89. Family sources told TMZ that Jackson died of cancer. He was surrounded by…
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GQ Asks: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Yeezy?
“I’m not wearing the sneakers, I’m not wearing the clothes, I’m not listening to the music. I’m definitely taking a step back—indefinitely,” said DJ and former Yeezy enthusiast Jerome Baker III to GQ, when asked how Kanye West’s recent antics affected his feelings about the Yeezy merchandise he owns. For months now (or years, for…
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All Black People Are Victims of Police Brutality
Editor’s note: This week, The Root will examine the many facets of law enforcement and its effects on the black community with our weeklong series Unprotected, Underserved: The Policing of Black America. He was 23 years old. He needed their protection. He needed their service. So he called the police. They shot him. He is paralyzed.…
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Unprotected, Underserved: The (False) Criminalization of Black America
Editor’s note: This week, The Root will examine the many facets of law enforcement and its effects on the black community with our weeklong series Unprotected, Underserved: The Policing of Black America. Any attempt at understanding the effects of policing in black America must begin from a rational, objective perspective. We must first free ourselves…
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Sophia Chang Ain’t Nothing to Fuck Wit’
In The Art of Exchange, The Root explores the intersections where different identities and communities of color meet. Each story covers a different place or personality that expands or challenges our idea of what cultural exchange, allyship and cross-cultural support look like. Sophia Chang wears her heart on her neck. On a sliver of red…
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The Oppression of White America
White people are oppressed. Stop laughing. It’s true. In recent years, a narrative has formed and spread among the masses that asserts that white people in America are being subjected to reverse racism, ridicule, public scorn and discrimination. Before attempting to examine (and ultimately dismantle) this preposterous hypothesis, we should acknowledge all the ways in…
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#MusicSermon Feeds Your Soul With Music History and Sound Every Week
Music is indelibly tied to memory. You remember what song you heard right before you got your first kiss or when you experienced your first heartbreak or when you blew out the candles at your sweet 16? The song you had your first dance to at your wedding reception is just as important as the…