culture
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Justice Beyond 'Stand Your Ground'
(The Root) — When it comes to post-verdict activism against racist policies, don’t forget school discipline. School-discipline policies that disparately impact black students played no obvious role in unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin’s death, or in the national outrage that followed George Zimmerman’s acquittal. But in the activism surrounding a case that even President Obama…
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Will Jay-Z Join Stevie Wonder's Florida Boycott?
The Huffington Post is reporting and attempting to confirm a list of performers who are rumored to be boycotting Florida in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict. The list was first released by American Urban Radio Networks’ April Ryan and includes names like Jay-Z, Kanye West and Usher. The Huffington Post is reaching out to…
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Get In on Spike Lee's Next Film
If you ever wanted to be involved in a Spike Lee joint, you now have your chance. The famed director announced a new Kickstarter campaign to fund his next film project, according to Shadow and Act. His goal is $1.25 million, and incentives for donations include the chance to be an extra in the film…
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Why America Wasn't for Me
Tiffanie Drayton, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, explains in a piece for Salon why she finally left America. In addition to the racial insensitivity from white people, she felt no connection to the black community. On the day of college graduation, I told my friends and family the news: I was leaving the country…
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Dwyane Wade's Ex Needs to Let Go
(The Root) — Over the weekend, I stumbled onto a Facebook post about the most recent antics of Siohvaughn Funches-Wade, the ex-wife of Miami Heat megastar Dwyane Wade. It seems that she, along with her mother and sister, planted themselves on the sidewalk outside of the circuit court in downtown Chicago last Friday and declared…
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Not My Childhood's Brooklyn
The gentrification taking place in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn inspired Chika Dunu to write a piece for Ebony lamenting the fact that her neighborhood has changed. She notes that the gentrification sends many negative messages to native Brooklynites. I am a Brooklyn native. Born and raised. I’m too young to have partied with…
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Interracial Families in 18th-Century Mexico
(The Root) — 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 Institute for African and African American Research. One of the most typical, revealing products of colonial Spanish culture was the casta painting. This Iberian term…
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Obama Speech a Stark Reminder to Americans
In a piece for The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen says that President Obama’s comments on the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial reminded America of the disparities that minorities face in our country’s criminal-justice system. “It is a real calamity, in this country, for any man, guilty or not guilty, to be accused of crime,…
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Black Actors Perform in Trayvon Martin Video Tribute
Like most of the black community, actor Omari Hardwick was deeply disturbed by the not-guilty verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial. He decided to channel his feelings into a poem and then reached out to his peers to help him present it in a video. The result is “Little Black Boy Wonder,” dedicated to Trayvon Martin.…
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Zimmerman Verdict: How Upset Are Blacks?
According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 86 percent of African Americans “strongly disagree” with the not-guilty verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial. The Washington Post found that while the racial gap is “extremely wide” when it comes to reactions on the shooting of Trayvon Martin, most of the divide comes from differing points of…