culture
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University of Texas Student Group Organizes 'Catch an Illegal Immigrant' Event
The Young Conservatives of Texas, University of Texas chapter, set the Internet ablaze Monday when it was revealed that they were planning a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” event. According to the Houston Chronicle, the game was set up to be played with five volunteers spread out wearing tags that read “illegal immigrant.” Then if a…
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Officer Shoots at Van Filled With 5 Kids
On Oct. 28, a family of six from Tennessee was traveling near Taos, N.M., when the driver was pulled over by a state trooper for speeding. There was an argument. The driver—the mother of the five children inside, ages 6-18—attempted to leave and was pulled over again. Her 14-year-old son left the minivan and confronted…
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Mother Believes Police Beat Her Handcuffed Teenage Son
The mother of a 14-year-old Pennsylvania boy caught shoplifting believes the police brutally beat her son, causing several cuts, bruises and a broken nose, NBC10 Philadelphia reports. Marissa Sargeant told the news station that her son was arrested for snagging goods at a local Wal-Mart. She claims that once her son was handcuffed, the teen was beaten…
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McBride Shooter Used Shotgun Named 'The Persuader'
The story of Theodore Wafer—a white, suburban Detroit man charged in connection with the Nov. 2 shooting death of unarmed black teen Renisha McBride—has all the elements of an American tragedy: a shooter and victim of different races, living on either side of the suburban-urban divide, in a state with a permissive self-defense code backed…
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Funding Crisis Threatens Black Theater
With the success of films like Lee Daniels’ The Butler, 12 Years a Slave and now The Best Man Holiday, which surpassed box office expectations this weekend, 2013 is being billed as a banner year for African-American films. But while films with predominantly black casts are thriving, live theater featuring predominantly black casts is not.…
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Here’s a Rarity: Blacks Performing in a Painting Free of Racist Overtones
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Thomas Eakins was, with Winslow Homer, one of the foremost American…
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Kanye West Done Beefing With Obama
Kanye West probably won’t be making peace with President Barack Obama any time soon, but that doesn’t mean the pseudo-feud between the two men will continue either. “I’m not gonna mention him no more, I’m past that,” West told Hot 107.9 in Philly’s Morning Show interview, which aired Monday. “That’s out my thoughts. That’s lowering my priority of…
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George Zimmerman Arrested Again
Updated, Monday, Nov. 18, 5:30 p.m. ET: George Zimmerman has been charged with aggravated assault, battery and criminal mischief in Florida today, as police say he pointed a shotgun at a woman, ABC News reports. Police identified the alleged victim as Samantha Scheibe, and said the incident occurred at a home the two share. Zimmerman, 30, was…
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NFL Player Claims Ref Called Him 'Garbage-Ass, Disrespectful Motherf–ker'
Washington Redskins left tackle Trent Williams claims that umpire Roy Ellison called him a “garbage-ass, disrespectful motherf—ker” during a drive near the end of the first half in Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, ESPN reports. Williams said that Ellison walked by him and cursed him, an accusation that teammates acknowledged happened. After the game,…
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Civil Rights Icon Who Helped Design Bus Boycott Dies
Civil rights icon the Rev. Theodore Judson Jemison, one of the organizers of the 1953 Baton Rouge, La., bus boycott, died on Friday at the age of 95, The Advocate reports. The bus boycott served as a template for the nonviolent, yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott planned by Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama. According…