culture
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Kanye West and Charlamagne Open Up Space to Talk About Black Men and Mental Health
It is impolite—unethical, even—to armchair-diagnose anyone in the public eye with having a mental illness, mostly because of the stigma attached to being labeled “crazy.” (It has nothing to do with privacy laws, I’m sure.) But even if Kanye West does not have an official label he wants to share publicly, he is certainly acting…
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Top 10 Ways Black People Keep Racism Alive, According to Wypipo
As one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of wypipology, I am constantly searching for ways to translate my studies into real-world applications. Fortunately, there are hundreds of white people who generously take time out of their day to accuse me of being the real racist. These scholars keep in constant contact with…
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Free Thought Is for White People
I am free. I am a black man. Perhaps the biggest challenge a father raising a black child in America will ever face is conveying the difference between those two things. It is hard to explain the oxymoron of making sure a person believes that the world provides them with limitless opportunity while ensuring that…
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Women of Color Within Time’s Up Join #MuteRKelly Protest
To Our Fellow Women of Color: We see you. We hear you. Because we are you. For too long, our community has ignored our pain. The pain we bear is a burden that too many women of color have had to bear for centuries. The wounds run deep. As women of color within Time’s Up,…
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New Music From ‘MAGA’ Kanye Asks Black People to Pull Themselves Up by Their Yeezy Bootstraps
On Friday the artist formerly known as Kanye West dropped two new tracks that prove he is still a musical prodigy, while cementing the widespread opinion that he has gone full “MAGA.” After turning his website into a one-song musical player, Kanye Trump dug into his crate of soul anthems to sample the 1973 song…
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How Bill Cosby Divided Black America
Editor’s note: In the wake of the Cosby verdict, former Ebony Editor-in-Chief Kierna Mayo reflects on her “shattered glass” Cosby Show cover and how it highlighted a great divide. Wednesday, when the news broke, my stomach reacted first. I was home writing when the CNN ticker flashed: COSBY FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS. The rush…
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The Black Person’s Guide to Avengers: Infinity War
This review contains spoilers … I think. I’m not really sure, but if this article ruins your moviegoing experience, I apologize. Also, if this review ruins your moviegoing experience, you need to get a life. I’m sure your news feeds and timelines are filled with reviews and think pieces about one of the most anticipated…
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Universal Fan ‘Con’? A Conversation With Black Girl Nerds’ Jamie Broadnax on the Biggest Black Convention That Wasn’t
Remember Fyre Festival, that “high end” event in 2017 that was supposed to be Girls Gone Wild mixed with Coachella but ended up being a millennial version of Naked and Afraid, with hundreds of people spending thousands of dollars to end up trapped on an island eating bologna sandwiches? Remember how, even though the real…
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Tracing Your Roots: Who Left My Mother in Foster Care?
After five wonderful, fun years of helping African Americans find their ancestry on The Root, we are looking forward to carrying on the work of the Tracing Your Roots column through an ongoing collaboration with AmericanAncestors.org by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Our new column will appear on AmericanAncestors.org and the related blog Vita-Brevis.org.…
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‘Genocide of Black People’: The Killing of Afro-Brazilians by Police Is an Injustice Marielle Franco Was Fighting to End
They walked 2.5 miles to the site of her assassination, all the while dancing, chanting and crying. On that hot and muggy night on April 14 in Rio de Janeiro, more than 3,000 people gathered at the center of Rio to demand police action in the murder of Afro-Brazilian politician Marielle Franco and to mark…