Saturday, February 28, 2009

What's up with the root?

I miss that light-skinned black guy who used to come on BET news, what's his name? Courtney Malloy. He's so buried in history that it took me about eight searches to verify that this guy even existed. Apparently he was a columnist for the Washington Post. and pretty much all i got was this article on www.blackcommentator.com, which by the way is going out of business. But that was just a reference to an article that is no longer available on the washington post website.

Anyhow. What's my gripe? Well, I am a regular Slate reader. I especially like the column jurisprudence, there's something widly entertaining about how they cover the shenanigans of the supremem court. And perhaps only they can make what the Supreme Court does into shenanigans.

Back to topic.

I'm a regular Slate reader, and i want the same kind of poignant commentary about the world and life from a black perspective. They have a sister-site (can we call them sisters?) called The Root. But everytime i go to the root, i'm sadly disappointed. I don't know, i read the NYT, economist sometimes and a few other online rags that keep me up-to-date. however, whenever I read the root (no longer caps), I'm sadly disappointed.

Most of the stories they have are of the Chris Brown (W) vs Rihanna (L) tragedy. They talk about entertainment and sports. But is that all black people do?

Great, i want a black perspective. But sometimes that means I want an economist who is black, not just some random black guy talking about the economy (me, duh). I'd like a political commentator or seventy who are dissecting the politics of the day, mostly the way the mainstream media does, but who also has the compassion, wherewithal and sense to throw in something from a grounded multi-cultural perspective. I'd just as well like to see the Sino-American or Hindu-American (maybe not Jindal) viewpoint. But it seems that those viewpoints are so niche and pushed to the side, that they can't even be mainstream.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by NYT and Slate. I'm just upset that the Root doesn't have anyone that speaks statistics and translates them into english.
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