slavery
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Betsy DeVos Compares Abortion to Slavery, Ayanna Pressley Invites Her to ‘Say It to My Face’
Secretary of Education and Cruella DeVille stunt double Betsy DeVos has shown us time and time again that she isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. We’ve seen her struggle to answer the most basic questions about education and even declared that she has not “intentionally visited schools that are underperforming,” after making it pretty…
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Here We Go Again: Buttigieg Getting Dragged for Saying Constitution Signers Didn't Know Slavery Was Bad
Once again, South Bend, Ind. mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg finds himself under the microscope and under fire for recently unearthed video of him saying something trash. You may remember that last month, The Root’s own Michael Harriot blasted Buttigieg over past comments about why black kids fail in school so often, saying, “Kids need…
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In the 2020s, We’re Hoping Plantation Weddings Go the Way of the Confederacy—and We May Get Our Wish
On Monday, The Glow Up’s very smart brotha Damon Young made the proposition that perhaps we should just burn down the remaining plantations in America—you know, those sites of the American holocaust that some seem intent on romanticizing as charming and picturesque—hosting tours, reunions and most often, weddings at these problematic venues. And celebrities have…
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So, What Exactly Does One Wear to a Slave Rebellion Reenactment, Anyway?
Last weekend, realizing of the vision of artist Dread Scott, hundreds of volunteers—in costume as 19th-century enslaved people—marched 26 miles to New Orleans’s French Quarter in a reenactment of the Louisiana Slave Rebellion. The rebellion, which occurred on Jan. 8, 1811, and was suppressed by white militia two days later, was the largest slave uprising…
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23 Years a Slave: Restaurant Owner Gets Bullshit Sentence for Enslaving Intellectually Disabled Black Man
A South Carolina restauranteur was sentenced to prison after admitting he used violence, threats, and intimidation to force a black man to work more than 100 hours a week with no pay in a stunning case of throwback slavery. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge R. Bryan Harwell sentenced 54-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards to 10…
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Oprah Winfrey Kicks Off Her New Book Club on Apple TV+ With Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer
Like so many other companies getting into the content game, the traditionally hardware-focused Apple launched Apple TV+ today with a promising partnership with the master of the media universe, Oprah Winfrey, whose Oprah’s Book Club will now be available to more than 900 million iPhones worldwide. Everyone’s favorite billionaire sat down with award-winning author, essayist…
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WWJD: Princeton Theological Seminary Announces $27 Million Reparations Plan
It is, to date, the largest monetary commitment of its kind: a $27 million commitment from Princeton Theological Seminary for scholarships and other initiatives to redress the institution’s long, tangled history with slavery. But campus-based advocates say the pledge, announced last Friday, is just a starting point. The New Jersey seminary, not affiliated with Princeton…
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Rapper Who Went On Apology Tour After Idiotic, Ahistorical Slavery Comment Puts Foot in Mouth Once Again
There once was a man named “Old Kanye.” Actually, that tale is stale. Cut to today, and we have the current iteration of Kanye West, which is…something else, indeed. According to The Fader, between 7,000 and 10,000 people gathered at Gateway Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Saturday for West’s infamous Sunday Service, which…
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Are Only Black American Descendants of US Slaves Deserving of Reparations?
With the nation’s renewed focus on whether or how to compensate black Americans for the evils of generations of chattel slavery in the U.S. and its systemically racist aftermath, some have questioned who should qualify for reparations should such reparative justice come to pass. William “Sandy” Darity, a Duke University economics professor and longtime proponent…