culture
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Race Advice Column Coming Soon to The Root
(The Root) — We’re excited to announce the April launch of Race Manners, an advice column that Staff Writer Jenée Desmond-Harris will be writing for The Root. Once a week, she’ll take on your toughest questions about the ethics and etiquette of racial interactions in a changing America. She’ll settle debates, provide explanations and address those concerns you’d never discuss in public for fear…
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Fired for Highlighting Tech Sexism, Adria Richards Speaks Out
In case you missed it: Last week, Silicon Valley veteran and “tech evangelist” Adria Richards tweeted a photo of two developers making crude jokes while attending a conference (“Not cool,” she wrote. “Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and ‘big’ dongles. Right behind me.”) One man was fired as a result. As the…
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Judge Joe Brown Canceled: $20 Million Was Too Much?
Judge Joe Brown is just behind Judge Judy when it comes to court-show ratings, but a 17 percent decline in his popularity reportedly led CBS to attempt to renegotiate his contract and ultimately cancel his program. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the daytime-television judge was making $20 million a year, so he’ll probably be OK…
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Jet Covered a Lesbian Wedding in 1970?
Buzzfeed has uncovered a piece of marriage-equality history: a same-sex wedding from 1970. Bonus: the women — Edna Knowles and Peaches Stevens — were both black, and the nuptials were covered by none other than historic African-American publication Jet magazine. Granted, this wasn’t the usual celebratory wedding profile as much as it was a news…
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Mandela Back in Hospital With Lung Infection
Former South African President Nelson Mandela has been hospitalized for the third time in four months, the New York Times reports. The 94-year-old is suffering from a recurring lung infection, according to a statement released by President Jacob Zuma, who asked people around the world to pray for the anti-apartheid icon: It was the third…
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Why Black Girls Are From the Future
Clutch magazine‘s Evette Dionne traces the origins of the #BlackGirlsAreFromTheFuture hashtag and explains why it has caught on as a digital movement. The hashtag garnered steam on Twitter and has since connected with black women on Tumblr and Facebook. The rapid growth of #BlackGirlsAreFromTheFuture is not coincidental because it easily connects to women within our…
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Are You Ready to Learn About Brian McKnight?
(The Root) — Brian McKnight is not the romantic love-song writer many people might expect. The silky-voiced singer-songwriter behind hits like “One Last Cry” and “Anytime” is also the same man behind 2012’s viral “adult” song “If You’re Ready to Learn.” McKnight said the lyrics to the shocker instructing a woman on how her “p—sy…
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I'm Taken but Want to Get Back With My Ex
(The Root) — “My ex is still in my life even though we’ve been apart since 2009; we dated for a few months. We haven’t seen each other in four years and talk every day, even though I’m taken (and unhappy) and he’s single. We never had sex during the time we dated. There are…
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Why Football Supports Gay Marriage
In a piece for USA Today, Domonique Foxworth, president of the NFL Players Association, says that it would be in the best interests of all Americans for the Supreme Court to strike down discriminatory legislation that denies gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. And he argues that the tradition of athletes means standing…
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Scariest Part About Rick Ross' Rape Line: Men Really Do It
Ebony‘s Jamilah Lemieux says that the Miami rapper’s latest troubling verse speaks to a major cultural issue. By now you have likely heard about Rick Ross’ controversial lyric on once-and future-struggling rapper Rocko’s new track “U.O.E.N.O” (NSFW): “Put molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it / I took her home and I…