culture

(The Root) — It all started with a video of three young black boys head-banging in New York City’s Times Square, playing a musical genre that, for a number of people, is a rarity for people of color. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based sixth-graders have been performing together since 2007, the year they formed the first incarnation…

There is no middle-of-the-road opinion about 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel, writes Jason Johnson at HLN, arguing that demographics play a large role in how critics and supporters have perceived her testimony and courtroom demeanor. Jeantel, the last person to speak to Trayvon, testified as a witness for the prosecution in George Zimmerman’s second-degree-murder trial. If you…

Writing at the Huffington Post, Kevin Powell argues that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down parts of the Voting Rights Act will reverse the progress made by civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. This historic gesture now frees nine American states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance…

(The Root) — Keri Hilson gets tested for HIV/AIDS every six months, and she’s lending her name to a product that will allow you to do the same. “I make healthy decisions when it comes to my sex life, and I make really good decisions to lower my risk of HIV,” Hilson told The Root during a…

(The Root) — When Coming to America premiered 25 years ago, on June 29, 1988, it was an instant classic — and the third-highest-grossing film of the year. The Eddie Murphy comedy, about a prince from a fictional African country who comes to the U.S. to find his future queen, tops plenty of fans’ funniest-movie-of-all-time…

The Washington Post is reporting that the Obamas visited the “Door of No Return” on Senegal’s Goree Island Thursday afternoon and looked at the Atlantic Ocean from the same vantage point that African slaves once had on their way to North America. The United States’ first African American president was then joined by his wife,…

The day after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, third-grade teacher Jane Elliott listened to her class in an all-white Iowa town make racist remarks about his death and decided to teach them a lesson, according to the Globe and Mail. “What I had racked my brain [for] was a…

During Thursday’s testimony in the George Zimmerman second-degree-murder trial, the defense cross-examined Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel, with whom he was talking on the phone when Zimmerman shot and killed him on Feb. 26, 2012. During the cross-examination, defense attorney Don West gave Jeantel a piece of paper to read for the record. But she…

Civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson tells the Associated Press that he will help embattled celebrity chef Paula Deen overhaul her image after her past use of a racial slur was revealed. He tells the AP that she shouldn’t become a “sacrificial lamb” over the issue of racial intolerance. Further, he argues that if…

In a piece at CNN, Donna Brazile argues that it is up to President Obama to convince Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act, which has been gutted by the Supreme Court. The challenge, however, will be mustering bipartisan support in a deeply divided Congress. In an earthshaking 1965 speech to Congress and to the nation,…