i tried it
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What I Learned From My Week as a Conservative
Two years ago, as part of an assignment, I was white. I didn’t change my skin color or anything, but I drove across country for three days into Mexico in a van with eight white men. After three days, we camped out in a remote, untouched wilderness for 12 days, hiking 75 miles total, with…
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Why I Decided to Become a Black Conservative
A few months ago, The Root began a series of stories under the name “I Tried It,” chronicling the experiences of writers who were willing to step outside their comfort zones to try things they normally wouldn’t consider. Some were incredibly adventurous, like senior reporter Terrell Jermaine Starr’s visit to one of the most radioactive…
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I Toured One of the Most Radioactive Places on Earth
It’s 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, and I’m sitting in a white minivan at Kiev, Ukraine’s central train station waiting to visit Chernobyl, where the world’s most catastrophic nuclear incident took place in 1986. I’ve been visiting Kiev every three months since 2008, but I’ve never been to Chernobyl, just two hours north of…
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I Got My 1st-Ever Brazilian, and It Changed My Life
Welcome to The Root After Dark, where I get to talk about all the things Danielle Belton (our editor-in-chief), Genetta Adams (our managing editor) and Yesha Callahan (our deputy managing editor) won’t let me talk about during the day. This is going to be fun for me, and I hope it is fun and enjoyable…
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I Tried It: A Night at the Opera
If I had to guess about my first real introduction to opera, it was back in the Napster days. I was in high school, and like many other kids who knew how to use the internet at that time, I was frequently solicited with musical requests once my parents got wind that there was a…
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I Tried It: I’m Not Mad at the ‘Come Meet a Black Person’ Event Organizer and You Shouldn’t Be Either
When I told my mother I was going to the “Come Meet a Black Person” event in Lawrenceville, Ga., she readily told me, “Pickeny gal, a mind dem a nah sum ku klux klan sin ting yah nuh.” This is Jamaican patois for “It’s a trap!” My friends also warned me that it was a…
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I Tried It: Notes From a Silent Party
Confession: I was absolutely thinking about pulling out of my first silent party an hour before I was to leave for it. I was running on minimal sleep and nursing a dehydration headache all day; and it was one of those cold, rainy fall days for which God invented cuffing season, malbec and Showtime Anytime.…
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I Tried It: If You’re Looking for a Way to Doze Off, Meditation May Be the Key
I’m a wannabe yogi. I’m working on myself as a human being, and yoga calls to me more than anything else ever has. I love yoga, I practice yoga at minimum three times a week, I teach yoga a few times a week and I read all the yoga books. In my few years of…
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I Tried It: My Co-Worker Shamed Me Into Watching Purple Rain
Yesha Callahan, The Root’s deputy managing editor, is a tyrant. I think my troubles really began in earnest last April when the greatest of all time, Prince Rogers Nelson, departed this earthly plane and the office was reminiscing. Of course, Purple Rain, both the album and the film, came up in conversation. I casually mentioned…