Free Republic

“Why is Harvard giving Claudine Gay ‘plagiarism privilege’?” asked the New York Post editorial board Saturday. It must be a rhetorical question. Professor Carol Swain, who was ripped off by Gay and complains “I feel like her whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work,” has some idea. “A white male would probably already be gone,” Swain, a black woman herself, told journalist Christopher Rufo recently.

A unique confluence of archeology, molecular genetics and serendipity guided a collaboration of Mexican and Penn State researchers to a deeper understanding of how modern corn was domesticated from teosinte, a perennial grass native to Mexico and Central America, more than 5,000 years ago.There is much interest in how ancient agriculturists transformed the wild grass teosinte into modern corn, one of the most important and successful crops on earth, according to team leader Jonathan Lynch, distinguished professor of plant nutrition. For decades, his research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences has been uncovering how roots play a critical role...

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in a new interview said former Presidents Trump and Reagan have similar roots in the Republican Party. "Reagan understood what all Republicans should: We are elected to protect the American people and their prosperity and their freedom," Cotton, widely seen as a potential future GOP candidate for president, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. "Both President Reagan and President Trump, who many people say represent these polar opposites between which we must choose, stood in that tradition," he added.

A Cedar Rapids man who was arrested Monday is accused of holding a woman captive and forcing her to watch “Roots” — a nine-hour miniseries that chronicles author Alex Haley’s family line from the capture and enslavement of his ancestor Kunta Kinte to the liberation of Kinte’s descendants. Robert Lee Noye, 52, forced the woman to sit with him, at a residence in the 700 block of Second Avenue SW and watch the series “so she could better understand her racism,” according to a criminal complaint. When she tried to move, Noye told her to “remain seated and watch the...

Colin Kaepernick abruptly canceled the workout the NFL scheduled for him Saturday, and instead worked out at a local Atlanta high school wearing a shirt comparing himself to a slave. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has not played since the end of the 2016 season, the same season he began protesting against the country as the national anthem played. But his exclusion from pro football has been a focus of attention as supporters claim he has been “blackballed” from the league for his extreme, left-wing activism.

What a difference a week makes! Last Sunday on AM Joy, Roots editor and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson accused Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam of "arrogance" for refusing to resign. Johnson railed: "He caused this problem on his own, and the best way to save his party would be for him to leave." But now that scandals have engulfed Virginia's Democratic Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, Johnson has changed his tune. On Reid's show today, Johnson advised Dems to "back off" any resignation or impeachment talk, because the result could be to elevate a Republican to the governorship. Johnson never acknowledged...

NORMAN, Okla. — When a group appeared with a video camera among the single-story bungalows on their street, the neighbors were mystified. Delores Clark was dirty from tending the garden. Sheena Jones had just moved in. Neither of them recognized the woman who was being filmed. It was not until last week, when Senator Elizabeth Warren’s biographical video about her family history rocketed around the Internet, that they realized who had been standing outside Clark’s house. It was Warren herself, gathering footage to emphasize her family’s roots on the Oklahoma plains. “I never knew she had any connection to Oklahoma...

A bomb threat at South by Southwest on Saturday caused Bud Light to cancel a concert featuring the popular hip-hop band The Roots...

We have a ‘carrot issue’ in our household. Whenever we go grocery shopping, my husband throws a big 2-pound bag of carrots into the cart. When I tell him that we already have a bin full (from his previous purchases) his response is, ‘I think I used some of them’ or ‘It’s ok, they last a long time’; and then he blithely wanders off, singing along with the Muzak, toward the meat counter - where he will find Great Deals on meat that we also don’t need, and for which there is no room in the freezer ;-) If we...

The Lie That Won't DieWow. White folks really are wicked. At any rate, this is the only judgment for a viewer to make upon watching the History Channel’s recent remake of Alex Haley’s Roots. A mini-series coming in at over eight hours and airing over four nights, the newest Roots features numerous white characters: men, women, and children; Union and Confederate soldiers; British Red Coats and colonial American troops. With a single exception—a white female Union spy—they are all portrayed as evil. Granted, some white characters are more sadistic than others, but virtually all—including the children—are indistinguishable from one another...

ohn Amos isn’t known for biting his tongue, and that has been well-documented, especially when his character James was killed off of Good Times. But now that the Roots remake is airing soon, the actor has voiced his opinion about the History Channel series and how he’s not sure that it’ll be as impactful as the original version was. SNIP “I guess it will be contingent upon how well it’s done, but I don’t think it’s gonna have the same impact for a number of reasons,” he said. “One, the circumstances that Roots was originally shown under was totally different...

Rapper Snoop Dogg will not be watching the remake of the miniseries “Roots,” and is calling on others to follow his lead. In a profanity-filled video on Instagram, the 44-year-old rap star and actor slammed the History Channel’s remake of the landmark 1977 miniseries about slavery, which began airing Monday. “I’m sick of this s—. How the f— are they going to put ‘Roots’ on, on Memorial Day?” he said in the video posted Monday. “They going to just to keep beating that s— into our heads about how they did us, huh?” Starting the video by saying “No disrespect,”...

The remake of Roots has gained widespread critical acclaim – but not from Snoop Dogg, who posted a short video on Instagram on Monday criticising the show, and suggesting that African Americans should not watch it. In the video, the rapper said that he was fed up with watching films and TV shows that depicted the abuse of black Americans. “12 Years a Slave, Roots, Underground, I can’t watch none of that shit,” Snoop Dogg said, also taking aim at the Steve McQueen-directed Oscar-winning film and the WGN TV series about slaves in Georgia escaping via an underground railroad, which...

I vividly recall the original iteration of the TV miniseries Roots. It was January 1977, and I was 17. Like most young people that age, my life was rapidly growing independent of my parents, who were increasingly consumed by the vagaries of their workplaces. Yet, when the series debuted, it was must-see TV in the Johnson household. We stopped what we were doing and watched it together and enthusiastically each night. We even cheered during the show, notable since we were often too darned middle class to cheer while watching football games on TV. The miniseries cleaned up during awards...

HISTORY® premieres "Roots" on Memorial Day 2016, airing over four consecutive nights at 9 p.m. beginning Monday, May 30, it was announced today by Paul Buccieri, President of A&E and HISTORY. The four-night, eight-hour event series developed by HISTORY, from A+E Studios, is a historical portrait of American slavery recounting the journey of one family and their will to survive and ultimately carry on their legacy despite hardship.

ANNAPOLIS – For Chris Haley, yesterday was the culmination of a storynearly 230 years in the making, as the third and last phase of the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial was dedicated at the foot of the City Dock here. About 150 people sweltered during the dedication ceremony along the concrete wall of the dock, where elected leaders unveiled 10 plaques on pedestals telling the story of the late Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Roots,” and his quest to document his family’s history from its African origins to present day. “It is unbelievable that it has grown into an almost national...

Kunte Kinte, Alex Haley, and Leonard Blackshear - three lives that have forever changed the face of Annapolis.Last night, more than a hundred people joined the bronze children around the statue of Alex Haley as if they were listening to stories from the book that forever lay open in his lap during the annual commemoration of the arrival of Kunte Kinte in America in 1767.Snip"Would we be here today if Alex Haley and Leonard Blackshear had not decided to explore their rich heritage?" asked Anne Jenkins, a poet and long-time Annapolis resident.Snip"History is a powerful source and a shining light,"...

At the inauguration just past, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee shoehorned a quote by Alex Haley into his introduction of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “The late Alex Haley, the author of ‘Roots,’ lived his life by these six words: ‘Find the good and praise it,’” said Alexander. “Today we praise the American tradition of transferring or reaffirming immense power as we inaugurate the president of the United States.” Ads by Google No More 2-Day Workweeks Congress should work 5 days a week, not 2. Agree? Sign the petition. NoLabels.org Join with Billy Graham, Declare: "I still have hope...

LeVar Burton was initially skeptical of remaking "Roots," the groundbreaking miniseries that launched his career in 1977. But Burton, who played a young Kunta Kinte, overcame those concerns after seeing the educational value in helping the new generation of Americans better relate to the plight of slaves and African-American history, particularly after the election of Barack Obama, the United States' first black president.

The all-star remake of the iconic miniseries Roots has an intense first trailer.