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Citigroup Needs Help
To regulate, or not to regulate—that is the question: Whether it is nobler to let the banks suffer a horrible fortune, or to take arms against this sea of debt. Nobilty and rhetoric aside, the U.S. has largely doubled back on its free market philosophies. As the Washington Post reports, the Treasury Department, the Federal…
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Step Aside
Nov. 24, 2008—The image of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. standing on the lawn at Grant Park in Chicago, tears streaming down his face as he listened to America’s first black president address thousands of adoring supporters, is sure to be one of the iconic images of the historic election It was a poignant…
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Trading Places
Nov. 21, 2008—Folks down with the number crunchers at sites like 82games, Basketball Prospectus, Baseball Prospectus and Football Outsiders, mutter these three little words—small sample size—as if it were a mantra and for good reason. Even those fans with no appetite for algebraic gymnastics with their sport can easily recall some otherwise ordinary player who had…
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The Root's New Look — A Sneak Peek
Dear Readers, Can you believe The Root is approaching the end of its first year? And my, what a year it’s been! As we’ve kept pace with the news and issues that matter to you most, providing you with insightful, provocative and witty commentary that you can’t find anywhere else, we’ve also been listening to…
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NPR: Race and The '08 Vote
Nov. 21, 2008—Race in America was the unavoidable topic at the center of the historic presidential election that ended with Barack Obama being chosen as the 44th president of the United States and the first black person to hold the job. It was a wide-ranging discussion that demonstrated just how much the country had changed…
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The New Old South
Nov. 21, 2008—Being black in South Carolina is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Until recently, my sister and I had two white cleaning ladies. And it seems so humorously ironic. My grandmother, the first in our family to move from the South to the North, made a living cleaning the homes of white…
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Cheap 'Arab Money'
Nov. 21, 2008—Sometimes I like to shut off my iPod, turn on the radio and see what kind of tripe is filling the FM airwaves. It’s subversively entertaining to me. And since I hold popular radio in such low esteem, there’s not much that can alarm me—not even cuts like “My Neck, My Back” or…
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Michelle's Best Assets
Nov. 20, 2008—My erstwhile African-American-studies-minored self would love nothing more than to publish a dissertation on why this piece in Salon, written by Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times, is destructive, superficial and historically unsound. But what would be the point? I would say how dare you continue the objectification of a black woman,…
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An Eco-Soul Thanksgiving
What better way to think of an eco-friendly Thanksgiving menu than to recycle one from last year? Bryant Terry is The Root’s resident eco-soul chef, and his Thanksgiving feast is sure to satisfy any appetite. The original article is reprinted below. You might have noticed that harvest celebration née Thanksgiving is this week. If you have…
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Victim's Delight
I’ve always wondered why and how rappers got away with bragging about illegal activity without any legal reprecussions. I always figured they were either lying, there was nobody around to substantiate the claims in songs, or no one cared enough to investigate. Well, when one rapper spit the whole truth on his track, his lyric,…