The Root (2008- ) is a Black-oriented news website in the US spun off from the Washington Post. Danielle Belton has been its editor-in-chief since 2017. She used to run one of my favourite blogs, The Black Snob.
Slate’s Black sister: Co-founder Henry Louis Gates Jr called The Root “Slate for black readers.” In fact, it was set up by Slate’s Jacob Weisberg, using the same technology and advertising sales team. The Washington Post owned Slate.
The name: Under Gates one of its main features was helping Black readers map their family trees and take DNA tests.
Inspiration: The Baltimore Afro-American, a national Black newspaper Gates remembers from childhood.
Traffic: In 2016 it was third among Black-oriented websites that got over a million unique visitors:
- 13.5m bet.com
- 6.3m huffpost.com/voices/black-voices
- 4.9m theroot.com
- 4.4m essence.com
- 4.2m bossip.com
- 4.1m worldstarhiphop.com
- 3.9m madamenoire.com
- 3.0m hellobeautiful.com
- 2.8m atlantablackstar.com
- 2.2m thegrio.com
- 1.4m newsone.com
- 1.3m mediatakeout.com
- 1.3m theundefeated.com (launched in May)
Bias: centre right – corporate Democrats of a Black Liberal hue. Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) says they are left-wing because of “story selection”. That just means The Root thinks Black people matter – now a left-wing position in the land of Trump.
Coverage: The Root functions as an appendage of the White Liberal press in the US, meaning that they generally just cover “Black” issues and personalities, with some anti-Trump snark thrown in.
Priorities: The number of mentions of various topics on The Root as of 2019 (according to Google search results):
- 5,670 Kanye West
- 3,360 Black Lives Matter
- 2,500 immigration
- 2,390 Cardi B
- 2,260 Martin Luther King
- 2,160 Jay Z
- 1,440 segregation
- 1,400 terrorism
- 1,260 Beyonce
- 1,190 voting rights
- 1,160 reparations
- 994 affirmative action
- 936 Malcolm X
- 900 Wakanda
- 791 racial profiling
- 782 homophobia
- 478 mass incarceration
- 404 Angela Davis
- 398 Lil Wayne
- 331 White nationalism
- 259 college education
- 186 Louis Farrakhan
- 166 structural racism
- 122 redlining
- 58 home ownership
- 45 “buy black”
- 1 ERPA (End Racial Profiling Act)
By 2015 even my blog had mentioned “structural racism” more times than The Root.
Fact checking: Excellent, though not perfect. But they are opinionated! Their blog Very Smart Brothas (VSB) said straight Black men are the White people of Black people – because, among other things:
“We’re the ones whose beatings and deaths at the hands of the police galvanize the community in a way that the beatings and sexual assaults and deaths that those same police inflict upon black women do not.”
What!!?
Business model: advertising.
Writers: Mostly Black.
Readers: Mostly non-Black: about 35% are White and 20% Hispanic. Every year readers choose The Root 100, a list of “the most influential African Americans, ages 25 to 45.” Cardi B, who does not consider herself Black, was at #14 in 2018.
Ownership: Not Black. In 2015 Univision bought The Root from the Washington Post’s holding company. Univision runs the largest Spanish-language television network in the US. They own Fusion Media, The Onion, The A.V. Club, Deadspin, Jezebel, Splinter, etc, which helps to drive traffic to The Root. Thus many of the White and Hispanic readers.
Haim Saban is part-owner and CEO of Univision. He is an Israeli American billionaire, “a major donor to the US Democratic Party and active in pro-Israel political efforts in the US,” says the Wikipedia.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
- US media
- Democrats
- The Black Snob:
- ERPA: End Racial Profiling Act
- Cardi B
- billionaire
576
Wow!
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The “straight black men are the white people of black people” generated a lot of traffic and lots of black men reacted quite negatively to that piece. I remember how angry many black men were. It was a very well written piece and the reaction of the black men was interesting to me.
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Wow indeed! Full disclosure, I’ve been one of the 35% White readership since before the Univision buyout and I’ve read VSB since their beginnings as well. I can’t even wrap my mind around the evolution from family trees & DNA testing to a news outlet. The amount of “entertainment news” they have makes the high amount of celebrity mentions unsurprising. I’ve found that they consistently “scoop” other mainstream media and that their ability to get firsthand accounts is impressive. I also like the sarcastic tone of several of the writers. Surprised by the center-right lean though… I wouldn’ve gone with center-left, but I read them in tandem with Axios daily, so maybe that’s why I come away with an overall center-left sense of the news-of-the-day.
For me… far and away the most valuable part of the Root is the conversations in the comments. The commenters are similar to here… mostly genuine and thoughtful with a few trolls sprinkled in for entertainment. Much more casual there, with silly memes and sarcasm weaved into every thread. But, in the end, some solid insights and perspective to be had by folks raised in a White bubble of privilege.
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This post explains the aura of kerchief headism I detect when reading some of the Root articles. What little I have that is.
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@ Mary & Abagond
Yes, I remember that piece (and just went back to re-read it). It’s one of those thought experiments that seemed tailor-made for controversy.
Regarding the specific part Abagond quoted: My take-away was that society, Black and White, largely ignores the beatings, rape, killings, police bias, etc… when it comes to Black women. This is in spite of the fact that it is these very women that tend to do the lion’s share of the work when it comes to movements like #BLM. Yes, we heard about Sandra Bland, and I learned of Oriana Ferrell here on this site, but did their suffering lead to the same kinds of movements and national protests and support within the Black community as Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, etc?
I think a lot of the controversy that piece generated might stem from the fact it requires you to strip away the context of white supremacy and consider only whether or not straight Black men have privilege within the Black community itself. Much the same as explaining White privilege to poor Whites requires them to strop away the context of class in order to see their privilege.
I don’t know… anyway, he did a follow-up a year later. Here’s a link if you haven’t read it already: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/a-look-back-at-the-reaction-to-straight-black-men-are-t-1829199309
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I like Michael Harriot. His writing always leaves meet nodding in agreement and sometimes busting a gut laughing.
That piece on straight black men being the white people of black people was so on point it goes over the heads of most black men. Simply put, black men do not use their oppression as an example of how not to treat people, particularly women. Nope, they turn right around and engage in misogyny and even racism against other cultures and white culture rewards them for it.
They passage that Abagond quoted simply states that black women are the main ones to go to bat for black men in ways that are not reciprocated. Black women organize entire movements for black men. Black men were there first to suggest that Sandra Bland probably had it coming.
That’s a big ass disconnect on how black women are regarded and treated and the fact that the article was written by a black man was very important. It’s a rare gem that needs to go down in history as the first public piece to recognize there’s a reason black women started #MeToo.
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Henry Louis Gates Jr., a very clever fellow, and yet a man cursed with “overweening pride.” Alas!
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@thatdeborahgirl I enjoy Michael Harriot’s writing, too. I often skim past articles from The Root when they appear in my feed, but I usually pause to see what Harriot has to say if I notice his name. His way with words is just so amusing, at times.
I didn’t realize The Root isn’t Black owned or that most of its readership isn’t Black. I couldn’t put my finger on why I don’t invest more time reading there, but now it makes a bit of sense.
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When are black people going to learn? Some people are never, ever, out to help us!
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Michael Harriott is one of my favorite writers on the Root. He’s funny and spot in his truth telling.
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I really used to love The Root’s Editor In Chief Danielle Belton’s old blog The Black Snob as well.
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@satanforce
Quiet your mind, because we will never learn. And sadly, time has almost run out.
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No. More of us are getting wise to certain tricks. And more of us are finally settling down, focusing on our work, and building links among ourselves. We’re no linger willing to act as golems for other peoples’ schemes.
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abagond – Thank you! I love that your research is more thorough than average on most topics. You offer a lot of unknown facts about different subjects. People generally “take for granted” things like black ownership of certain media, even if what they think they know for sure is not true. I plan to share this post from you (with credit, of course) in a black history and empowerment group I participate in on FB. I bet a lot of people will be shocked by many of the details you offer.
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serious question – why would they be shocked?
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Can it really be considered black oriented at this point?
Haim Saban (Power Rangers and Digimon importer) actually owns a share of the Root? That’s definitely suspect.
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@thatdeborahgirl
‘They passage that Abagond quoted simply states that black women are the main ones to go to bat for black men in ways that are not reciprocated. Black women organize entire movements for black men. Black men were there first to suggest that Sandra Bland probably had it coming.”
From what I remember it was mainly white people who stated the usual canards on how Sandra Bland should’ve been more reasonable and coooperated with the police during that ‘traffic stop’. Then when she “committed suicide” in prison and people questioned that they said that it was just a conspiracy theory.
Usually when I see a Black person apologizing for police brutality or state violence in general they tend to be some kind of liberal and I don’t mean in the US sense but rather a defender and advocate for capitalism. So to say that Black men don’t show up for Black women (or the opposite) needs more evidence and context.
As far as The Root goes, they fell off once they became a part of Gawker. The usual liberal suspects showed up and dominated any conversation. By 2016 I was done with them due to their blatant bias for Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
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“Black men were there first to suggest that Sandra Bland probably had it coming.” – ThatDeborahGirl
Links please??? Personally, I’d hate to see you lose credibility here because your posts are usually fact ladened. I’ll wait! (rolling my eyes)
Damn, .. aren’t Black folk tired of the divide and conquer scheme??
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Dear blakksage: If you have Twitter and Facebook by all means, please feel free to use their search functions. I remember at the time being shocked by posts from black men that were along the lines of, if she had just kept quiet, hadn’t been running her mouth like a “typical” black woman, then she wouldn’t have been arrested, let alone killed. There were memes and jokes at the time as well and the only reason I can tell you they didn’t hit my FB feed from white people was because until this past year I could count my white FB friends, quite literally, on one hand. The number is not much larger now.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that research for you and I’m going strictly from what I remember at the time so I have no links to provide you.
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First off,
Haim Saban, the man who brought Super Sentai in the form of Power Rangers to the West? That Haim Saban?
Second, I kinda agreed with their article regarding straight black men are the white people of the black community in many respects. I admit, I was a little bothered by it, but after some consideration, I can see where they’re coming from. But that’s just my opinion.
Overall, the Root seems more and more like the black left wing arm of the white liberal-dominated media. In some cases, they’ll state opinions that are critical of white racism, but not so critical as to ruffle a lot of feathers. As such, a lot of white liberals would cosign on a lot of what they think and say.
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“I remember at the time being shocked by posts from black men that were along the lines of, if she had just kept quiet, hadn’t been running her mouth like a “typical” black woman, then she wouldn’t have been arrested, let alone killed. There were memes and jokes at the time as well and the only reason I can tell you they didn’t hit my FB feed from white people was because until this past year I could count my white FB friends, quite literally, on one hand.”
Ok, that’s fine. However, don’t you think that by saying, “Black men were there first to suggest that Sandra Bland probably had it coming” is too broad of a brush to paint all Black men into to a corner or that we are all like minded in regards to how Sandra was murdered?
Well, I for one never entertained such thoughts and I know of not one other Black man that thought what you posted above. You should’ve used a pronoun as opposed to a noun in regards to this situation.
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