culture
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#RelationshipGoals: 10 Reasons We Love This Is Us Couple Beth and Randall
After the dysfunction of Scandal’s Olivia and Fitz, Issa and Lawrence of Insecure, and just about every reality-TV couple, Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) on NBC’s This Is Us are just the representation of #BlackLove that viewers need. The Pearsons offer something viewers haven’t seen for some time (if ever): a…
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The Smithsonian Is Creating a Dope Hip-Hop Anthology
When MC Lyte broke into the hip-hop world as a pioneering solo female rapper, she wasn’t thinking about making history. Like most aspiring artists, she wanted to be on the radio. “I was a lover of hip-hop. I went to the hip-hop clubs. I started rapping in elementary school … at 12, I started keeping…
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On Watching a Black Woman Let Wypipo Touch Her Hair
At the intersection of divine providence and the collection of complex chemical reactions that cause us to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide and that we have chosen to call “life,” there still exists a nether region that can be explained only by the ancient African proverb, “Shit happens.” Shit happened to me last night. Well,…
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30 Years Later, 7 Ways A Different World Was Woke AF
A Different World was an American sitcom that aired for six seasons beginning in September 1987, making it 30 this year. The show focused on students attending a fictional historically black college in Virginia, Hillman, the alma mater of Clair and Cliff Huxtable of The Cosby Show. While the show has been cited as a…
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The Caucasian’s Guide to Halloween Costumes
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in “White-People Quarterly.” For a subscription, please consult your local pumpkin-spice retailer. For years, brain scientists and education experts have searched for a way to make white people understand what not to wear to Halloween parties. In the 2016 annual secret Global White People’s Convention, a vote to issue…
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‘You Know My Heart’: Why White People Still Do Blackface
In 2015 a white Alabama schoolteacher was forced to write a public apology after pictures of him dressed up in blackface for Halloween went viral. The teacher, Heath Morrow, was dressed up as Kanye West; his wife as Kim Kardashian West. Morrow donned a blazer, a backward baseball hat and shutter shades—the sort of look…
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Fake-News Friday: Confessions From a Secret KKK Collaborator
I’m sure that many of you have heard the news by now that one of the most respected sites in journalism has uncovered evidence of my involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. I will not impugn the journalistic integrity of the reporter who unearthed the documents; in fact, I don’t even deny the charges. I…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Unanswered Questions
It’s clapback Friday, and you know what that means: Time for me to sit down and write another introduction for the emails, tweets and comments that The Root receives during the week. This week’s clapbacks are dedicated to all the white people who email us with recurring themes, namely: Why are black people so stupid…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Ancestor’s Records Are Confusing!
Was a formerly enslaved man in a May-December romance? Was he well-read or illiterate? We try to untangle the clues. Dear Professor Gates: I have hit a brick wall in my research regarding an ancestor by the name of King David Hinch, born in Tennessee. His birth year varies in records that I have found,…