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What We Mean When We Call White People ‘Colonizers’
I’ve included references to East Liberty—a neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s East End—in pieces I’ve written for VSB, Ebony, Slate and GQ, and it’s peppered throughout my book. There’s an entire chapter, for instance, devoted to the changes it’s undergone in the past 20 years. I do this because it’s where I spent many of my formative…
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White Woman Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Racist Tirade Appears in Court With … Cornrows
I do not know Vicki Momberg, the South African woman sentenced to three years in prison after her racist tirade toward a black police officer, so I won’t pretend to know why she decided to appear in court Wednesday with fresh cornrows. But I’ve got theories and suspicions! So many theories and suspicions! While in…
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We Don’t Love Men Like Fabolous. We Just Hate Women
If there’s a takeaway from the revelation of and the reaction to Fabolous’ abuse of Emily Bustamante, his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his two children, it’s that there are no fresh takeaways from it. We should know by now not to allow a man’s laid-back public persona to make us assume he’s not…
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Is It a Coincidence That Today’s Most Outspoken Black Male Athletes Are Married to Black Women? (Hint: Nah)
In 2005, Kanye West articulated the perceived inevitability of successful black men leaving black women for white women in “Gold Digger”—a song 1) in which he was speaking specifically to black women and 2) that he created while he was likely dating either Alexis Phifer or Brooke Crittendon (actual black women). Considering Kanye’s present life,…
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Things About You That No One Actually Gives a Shit About, Ranked
15. Your dreams (and not like your hopes and dreams and shit—people should care about those—but the dream you had last night about clowns and chicken-fried tofu. No one cares). 14. Your unsolicited dating preferences. 13. Your parenting advice if you’ve never had children and your marriage advice if you’ve never been married (also, it…
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The ‘Dread Train,’ Where (White) People Tie Their Dreadlocks Together, Is More Proof That White People Must Be Stopped
If you’re as big a fan of True Romance as I am—and consider it, as I do, the quintessential Tony Scott film—perhaps you’ve imagined how it would look if Drexl (the dreadlocked pimp played by Gary Oldman) and Floyd (the perpetually stoned roommate played by Brad Pitt) decided to clone themselves a dozen times, and…
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The Creation of the Avocado Toast Cocktail Is the Whitest Thing That Has Ever Happened
My eyes have seen some pretty damn white things. I once saw a single speck of pepper on top of a presumably seasoned chicken breast placed on my plate at a white person’s wedding in 2003. When I quickly glanced into the serving tray to see if, perhaps, this single peppered breast was rogue, an…
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Why I Don’t Have Any White Friends, Explained
Huh? It was when I was 17: The Pittsburgh Zoo made this big stink about getting a polar bear—press releases and parties and polar-bear-themed brunches and shit—despite the fact that they already had perfectly fine (and strikingly handsome) black and brown bears. I saw that as a metaphor for America, and I pledged to never…
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The Best Thing About Atlanta, the Best Show on Television
During “Sportin’ Waves,” the episode of Atlanta that aired Thursday night, Earn received a generous and unexpected payout from Darius’ puppy-related investments in season 1. Armed with this unanticipated cash, the still-homeless and aggressively underemployed Earn invests it in a gift card scheme suggested by Tracy, a recently paroled houseguest of Paperboi’s, who claims that…
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The Trump White House Is Love & Hip Hop for Terrible White People (and Ben Carson)
Remember way, way, way, way, way back when Love & Hip Hop: New York was centered on Peter Gunz and his revolving sister wives? And way, way, way, way, way back before then, when Erica Mena was still on the show and hurling wine flutes like ninja stars at Rich Dollaz’ neck? And way, way,…
