the root tv
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Judge of Characters: Kanye West Doesn’t Care About Racism
This has been a very hard week to swallow, namely because of rapper and former black man Kanye West. Kim Kardashian’s doting husband has been known for his sporadic rants, but this time (like many times before) he took to Twitter to share whatever thoughts were running through his brain. Clearly, the sunken place has…
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Watch: The Downfall of Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby was found guilty Thursday of all three charges in the sole criminal trial brought against him concerning former athlete Andrea Constand. The jury’s decision came after dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct and years of public debate over Cosby’s conduct. Cosby’s upcoming sentencing may result in the 80-year-old serving the rest of his…
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Watch: Trump’s Silence on the Waffle House Shooting Is Deafening; the 4 Victims Killed Were All People of Color
A white gunman is accused of killing four people of color at a Waffle House outside of Nashville, Tenn., early Sunday morning. The gunman was just apprehended by police Monday afternoon. It’s been more than 36 hours since the shooting, and Donald Trump hasn’t said anything about the incident. Instead, he’s tweeting about building a…
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Judge of Characters: Can White People Do Black Hair?
Perhaps the proper question is, can “transracial” mascot Rachel Dolezal do black hair? Well, she does, and has been doing so for a while; she acknowledged in her book, In Full Color, that she would do hair in college as a side hustle. That hustle has grown into a full-on kitchen-beautician business, and Dolezal is…
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Watch: A Chef Who Grew From the Concrete Jungle
A passion for food led Lionel Tate on a journey to find out what real manhood meant. Tate is the owner of Tasty Tate’s Kitchen, an Instagram-based restaurant that has given Tate a whole new lease on life. Tate says he thought he would gangbang for the rest of his life when he was 14…
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Brittney Cooper Talks Beyoncé, White Feminists and Black Women’s Oh-So-Eloquent Rage
The anger of black girls is potent. And given what we deal with, it’s sometimes masked. Or internalized and regurgitated in harmful ways. But Brittney Cooper—Professor Crunk to you, sir— is here to tell y’all all about it. Her book Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower is about how we can use rage to…
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Watch: Embracing the Otherness With Unreal’s Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman
Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman is an other. He’s a biracial, queer man who was adopted and raised in a teeny-tiny town in Alberta, Canada, where he was the only person of color. So yeah, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman stood out. “I was the other. I was different than everybody else around me and I was told what I was,”…
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Watch: To Understand How Harmful Juvenile Incarceration Is, Listen to This Poem
In a spoken-word poem, Dwayne Betts details the emotional impacts of juvenile incarceration. In partnership with WNYC Studios, we present Caught. #CaughtPodcast
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Watch: Black Panther’s Reign Just Won’t Let Up
Chadwick Boseman dominated Saturday Night Live this weekend in one of the highest-rated episodes this year, and the excitement surrounding Black Panther is as prominent as it was before the film’s debut. Nearly two months after Black Panther hit theaters, the film continues to shatter records and set new trends in entertainment. The movie is…
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Watch: What It’s Like to Be a Black Woman in Hollywood
Diversity and representation are the hot-button topics in Hollywood right now. In an industry that reflects the world in which we live, black people and women—so, basically black women—are often underrepresented in Hollywood. But people like Tyler Perry are changing that. Sure, he’s a polarizing figure based on his content, but you can’t deny his…