culture
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SNL Alum Jay Pharoah Is Ready to Become White Famous on Showtime
Fans who’ve missed comedian Jay Pharoah since his official exit from Saturday Night Live last year after six seasons now can have him all to themselves thanks to his new Showtime series, White Famous. Executive-produced by Jamie Foxx and Tim Story (director of Ride Along and Think Like a Man), White Famous puts Pharoah, a…
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It’s Not Class, It’s Race: Why America Can’t Move Forward Until It Addresses the Racial Wealth Gap
We don’t tend to look at the wealth gap as a form of violence, even though it’s certainly rooted in it. Take the massacre in Wilmington, N.C. The 1898 race riot is one of those stories that have been willfully erased from history, even though it is the only coup d’état to ever take place…
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Writer-Director Angela Robinson Tells the Story of How Psychology and Polyamory Created Wonder Woman
Even if you’re familiar with Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, the film about the man behind Wonder Woman, you might not know that a black woman wrote and directed it. Probably because most of Angela Robinson’s career has largely been in the shadows of television, directing and producing such hit series as The L…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: The Whitest Email of All Time
I’m sorry, y’all, but this week we’re featuring only one piece of email. It’s not that we didn’t receive a lot of hate mail this week. (Don’t worry; we won’t ever run out of shitty comments from disgruntled readers of The Root—ever). It’s just that answering more than one piece of email this week would…
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5 Ways Black People Can Force Commonsense Gun Control
They wouldn’t do it after the Las Vegas massacre. They wouldn’t do it after Gabby Giffords was shot. They wouldn’t even do it after Sandy Hook. Maybe there is no one who can break the toxic romance that America has with guns … I bet black people could. You know we have to do all…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was Great-Grandma Part Creek Indian?
Historic records point to a life of mixed heritage in the American West. Dear Professor Gates: My great-grandmother Lula Craig/Creg, born Jan. 26, 1870, appears on both the federal 1910 census in Depew City, Creek County, Okla., and the 1910 Indian-population census for that city and county. Lula and her children (including my grandfather Bobby)…
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I Tried It: Bacon Is the SZA of Meats
In my quest to become a whole, functioning human being, I have been going through a yearslong process of undoing and unpacking the subconscious biases and fears that created the person who could never be described any funnier or more succinctly than by my line brother, who once said: “Michael Harriot, you’re one weird-ass strain…
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The Crisis in Puerto Rico Is a Racial Issue. Here’s Why
Last week, CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and asked if he thought President Donald Trump’s punishing response to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico had something to do with “race or ethnicity.” Sanders hesitated a bit but ultimately said, “We have a right to be suspect.” The relative surge in coverage about Puerto Rico after…
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I’m About to Be a Father to a Black Boy and I’m Scared to Death for Him (and Me)
My wife and I had gone to the doctor’s for a routine appointment. We weren’t married then; in fact, we weren’t even engaged, but we were ready for a baby. We had a name. We’d gone to Target and purchased a pair of crocheted bunny ears and a rubber duck that can tell the bath…