video
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Deathstreaming: U.S. Army Vet Whose Son Was Killed on Facebook Live Says ‘Violence Has to Stop’
Could you imagine how it feels to have served in the military and then work a quarter of a century for the Department of Corrections to learn one day that your son has been murdered while broadcasting on social media—of all places? That is what happened to Roosevelt Rankins, Sr., whose 34-year old namesake was…
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From Harry Belafonte to Tarana Burke, OG Journalist Ed Gordon Talks About Bringing Together an All-Star Team for Conversations in Black
Emmy award-winning Journalist Ed Gordon is still here. You might remember his groundbreaking interviews with Tupac Shakur, Whitney Houston or Orenthal James Simpson after his acquittal. Mr. BET News has a new book entitled, Conversations in Black: On Power, Politics, and Leadership. Gordon brings together a variety of prominent black voices, including Stacey Abrams, Eric…
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Marsha’s Plate Trans Podcast Wants to Liberate All Black People
For the past two years, Diamond Stylz and her podcast co-hosts Mia Sloan and Zahir Alexander have been providing space for black people to liberate themselves from transphobia. They want trans black people to speak freely about their experiences without the pressure of accommodating the white gaze. They want cisgender people to have a space…
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A Quest for Justice: Just Mercy Cast on the Racial Inequality in the Criminal Justice System
“Slavery doesn’t end in 1865, it evolves. It’s that century of lynching and terrorism. And then it becomes racial apartheid and Jim Crow segregation. And now it has become over-incarceration and excessive punishment.” —Bryan A. Stevenson text Bryan A. Stevenson is a gift. As an attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative—an organization dedicated to…
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Why Some Black LGBTQIA+ Folks Are Done 'Coming Out'
‘Inviting in’ is a way to complicate what is normally thought about as ‘coming out.’ —David Johns text David Johns’ issue with how society frames “coming out” stories stems from who we expect to tell them—and who we don’t. “I would be OK with the idea of coming out if it meant that everyone was…
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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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Look Back At It: The Top 10 Protest Movements of the Decade
If it were possible to encapsulate the sentiment of an entire decade, the last 10 years could be distilled down to one word: “Nah.” Whether it was Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Colin Kaepernick taking a knee or white people burning Nikes they bought from J.C. Penney, it is impossible to recap 2010-2019 without taking a…
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Twitter Fingers on Fleek: How Black Twitter Changed the World
“When you can change the way companies market and brand their products because you are in this collective, that’s power. When you can swing votes. That’s power. There’s so many things that black people—Black Twitter—has been able to do as a collective that reflect the power that we have just as a people.” —Feminista Jones…
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Pete Buttigieg on Institutional Racism, Economic Inequality, and White Supremacy
“Systemic racism, and white supremacy in particular…is the force that is most likely to destroy America.” — Pete Buttigieg text He said it. And all it took was an 8-year-old viral video clip, his campaign polling at zero percent among black voters and someone calling him a “lying motherfucker.” Also, I am someone. During a…
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An Intimate Look at How White Women Spent the Last 10 Years Doing the Most…and the Least
It’s that special time of the year where I only play Christmas carols and reflect on the previous 300-some odd days before. Fortunately for me, since 2019 is also the end of what’s been quite a decade, I’ve been reflecting a bit more ahead of the year 2020. And as the video team at The…