racism
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Racism May Be Dolce & Gabbana's Demise. What Took So Long?
How many instances of bias or cultural insensitivity does it take for a fashion label to be called to account for its racism? Dolce & Gabbana is finally finding out after a series of campaign ads peddling in cultural stereotypes, followed by racist comments, have rightfully drawn the ire of the Chinese and the fashion…
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‘More Racist than Ferguson’: Hoover, Ala., and the Inevitable Death of Emantic Bradford Jr.
While I don’t know who shot Emantic Bradford Jr., I can tell you that his killer works for me. Every time I go to buy groceries, I pay his salary. My property taxes paid for the bullets he fired. And everyone knew it was going to happen. When a Hoover, Ala., police officer shot 21-year-old…
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Is This Your Queen? Ellen Pompeo, Growth and Performative White Allyship
There is a video circulating on social media currently that has people praising Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo as our new white shero. In the video, Pompeo is on stage being interviewed by Net-A-Porter alongside actresses Gabrielle Union, Emma Roberts and Gina Rodriguez. In the short clip, she is discussing how white people have a…
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We're Being Too Hard on Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
Racism is so embedded in Southern culture that Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith truly believes that she’s not racist; that her comment about being front row at lynching were not racist; that wanting to suppress the liberal vote is not necessarily racist or posing in Confederate artifacts is racist. Wait, what? On Tuesday, the same day…
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Americans Don’t Disagree About What Racism Is … White People Do
In theory, I am the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Harriot, Ph.D., a great husband and father who gave up a lucrative career in music to spend more time with my family. In reality, I have not been awarded a prize for my writing; I haven’t received a doctorate and my family would probably describe my…
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Don’t Be Naive: Avoiding Calling Trump Supporters Racist Won’t Convince Them to Vote for Democrats
I have a confession to make: I spent nearly two decades in a mostly white evangelical church in South Carolina. The staff was mostly white. The pastor was white. The music was, well, mostly white. My son and daughter, now 17 years old and 14 years old, respectively, were dedicated in that church. My wife’s…
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Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen on What Has Changed Since the Civil Rights Movement and Jim Crow
In the new film Green Book, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen play a black musical genius and the hard-nosed Italian he hires to drive him through the Jim Crow south on a concert tour. The Root recently sat down with both actors to get their take on the ways in which not much has changed…
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The Mouth Shall Rise Again: Kansas Governor Wants County Commissioner Out for ‘Master Race’ Comment
A Kansas county commissioner made an extremely uncomfortable reference to a “master race” while speaking to a black city planner, and Gov. Jeff Coyler wants him out. According to the Kansas City Star, Leavenworth County Commissioner Louis Klemp addressed experienced city planner, Triveece Penelton, in a very, ah, unique way. “I don’t want you to…
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Like Many Black Women, Kim Porter Was Under a Doctor's Care and Still Died. That's Terrifying
To prepare for the expected birth of our second child next month, my wife and I are enrolled in one of those new age birthing classes where the bulk of each two-hour-long session is devoted to language and connotation. (“Don’t say birthing canal. Say birthing stream, because streams are calming.”) I am bored out of…
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Online Supporter of Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Arrested, Said Pittsburgh Was a ‘Dry Run’
A white nationalist who had an online friendship with the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect has been arrested for having a small arsenal in his possession. His relatives alerted the authorities. Thirty-year-old Jeffrey R. Clark Jr. of Washington, D.C., has been charged with “one federal count of unlawful possession of firearms by a person who is…