Politics

It was striking, the tears that welled up in the eyes of Texas delegate Anne Price Mills as she spoke of her devotion to her candidate at the Democratic National Convention. She was talking to CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux on the convention hall floor. The way she gushed about inspiration, experience and presidential credibility seemed emblematic…

For several weeks, there has been a tiresome, two-part drum beat, the sort of somber thumping one associates with a funeral procession or wake. One droning beat came from the press. Can the Democrats unite? Will Hillary and Bill support Barack? Is there any hope that working-class whites or feminists will find a way to…

“I decided, you are the him for me.” —Solange Back in the day, KRS-One penned “Jack of Spades” for Keenan Ivory Wayans’ ‘hood Robin Hood in the blaxploitation send-up I’m Gonna Git You Sucka because, “every hero should have his own theme music.” We probably won’t see a reconstituted BDP performing “My Philosophy” behind Sen.…

It is hard to separate out all the different levels of astonishment and euphoria attached to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech tonight. For many people, Obama’s triumph thus far so fundamentally shatters the worldview of what is possible in America that there are no words up to the task of describing what they feel. For black…

Yes, I did think this moment would happen. I believed that an aging, maturing democracy was capable of separating itself from race to evaluate the merits of an exemplary candidate. I believed that while the Clintons are formidable, my party would not resist the chance to capture lightning in a bottle. I believed from the…

One of the most remarkable things about Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee—apart from the fact that he managed to keep it secret—is that in this remarkably contentious election season, it did not seem to anger anyone. That is a remarkable feat for a party so desperate to win and…

Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

Without a doubt, Hillary Clinton has been a trailblazer. She steeled herself for a tough primary battle, became a terrific campaigner by the end of the season and ended up, in her own words, making 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, with the help of her fiercely loyal and energized base of supporters. Those…

An untrained ear listening to Michelle Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention might have dismissed her carefully scripted and reassuring comments as the unfortunate repackaging of a woman derided for being too strong and outspoken. But perhaps the audience was witnessing something entirely the opposite, a Michelle Obama so confident in her essential self…

Let’s start from the beginning. The concept of catharsis has a powerful pre-Freudian connection to the sacred feminine. In 355 B.C., Aristotle developed the idea of collective purging in response to tragedy based on the medical term katamenia, which described reproductive fluids. Hundreds of years later, devotees of Mary Magdalene found inspiration in his idea…