culture

Award-winning fashion critic Robin Givhan, at New York magazine, endorses former model agency owner Bethann Hardison’s recent letter that calls for an end to racism on the runway. Diplomacy has shifted to confrontation. Bethann Hardison, the former model agency owner who has been a leading advocate for greater diversity on the fashion runway, has gone…

In a piece at her blog, Farai.com, Farai Chideya explores questions that have bedeviled President Barack Obama and Congress in the smoldering debate over Syria. She blends issues of morality (When is killing justified?) with those of national interest (Will intervention help America?). Let’s parse out a few of these different lines, and who espouses them.…

In a surprise move, Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP president and CEO, says he plans to step down in January, the Washington Post reports. He is slated to make the announcement on Monday. Five years ago when Jealous took the helm of the 104 year-old civil rights group, he became the youngest president in its history.…

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour has canceled plans to feature Miley Cyrus on the December cover after witnessing her recent performance at the Video Music Awards, according to the Daily Mail. The 20-year-old […] was photographed for the December issue as editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had been eager to champion her as a new fashion icon.  But…

New York City police are investigating a possible hate crime after a black man reportedly shouted, “I’m going to punch the first white man I see,” before attacking Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, who fell backward and hit his head on the ground, the Daily News reports. Babbitt is feared brain-dead. Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, who is white,…

During a recent interview, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Bill de Blasio, a Democrat in the race to replace him, is running a “racist” campaign based on “class warfare,” the Washington Post reports. Bloomberg made the comment about candidate Bill de Blasio in an interview with New York magazine due on newsstands Monday.…

(Special to The Root) — Fifty years ago, when viewers across the country tuned in to watch the Loyola Ramblers play the Cincinnati Bearcats in the 1963 NCAA men’s basketball championship, they saw for the first time a sight that’s familiar to us today: Most of the players on the court, seven of 10, were…

At MSNBC Adam Serwer says that the workplace will likely be the only place impacted by last week’s court ruling that use of the n-word is wrong, even among blacks. Like it or not, he says, the word has become a permanent fixture in America’s nomenclature, with all of its connotations. Earlier this week, a…

Arguing that people of color will remain a part of the American fabric long after President Barack Obama leaves office, Jonathan P. Hicks says at BET that it would be wise for Republican lawmakers to set aside their ideological differences with his administration and adopt long-term solutions to address the staggering black unemployment rate. It…

Writing at Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Ibram X. Kendi, assistant professor at University at Albany, SUNY, challenges an argument by Republicans that “racism talk breeds disunity,” which has been put forth in the weeks since George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. It is actually their dogma that is at the…