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How Much Money Would You Pay to Watch a Donald Trump Perp Walk?
My parents and I would sometimes play this game where we brought up a thoroughly unattractive and/or vaguely problematic dare (i.e.: Driving to GetGo while butt-ass naked) and then attached increasing dollar amounts to it until you finally said yes. (“Would you drive to GetGo while butt naked for $10?” “No.” “50?” “No” “200?” “Eh.”…
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A List of Things Personally Threatened By Billy Porter's Red Carpet Gown
1. My sexuality (of course) 2. My blackness 3. My black male-ness 4. My fashion sense 5. My understanding of how gowns work 6. My relationship with my dad 7. My feelings about carpets 8. My feelings about the color red 9. My feelings about when things like “carpets” and “red” are in close proximity…
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White People Are Getting Whiter
I recently decided to buy a new brand of mouthwash. Not because of any breath odor deficiencies that I’m aware of, but because it said on the bottle that it also made teeth whiter and I’m grown and I already get salmon with my side salads so why not splurge for the nuclear mouthwash too?…
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A (Very Short) Case for Why Pittsburgh Is the Blackest City in America
I’m not going to cite the Homestead Grays or the history of the Hill District. Nor will I The Pittsburgh Courier, Homewood, Teenie Harris, Billy Eckstine, Phyllis Hyman, John Edgar Wideman, Little Haiti, The Crawford Grill, Mary Lou Williams, George Benson, Josh Gibson, Antoine Fuqua, Billy Porter, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Art Blakey, Romare Bearden, Kyle…
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On Justin Fairfax and Believing Women When It’s Politically Inconvenient
Even the qualifier most frequently used when describing the allegations against Justin Fairfax, the Virginia lieutenant governor accused of sexual assault, tells a story. From “Justin Fairfax Faces Mounting Calls for Resignation Amid Second Sexual-Assault Allegation” Republican Speaker of the House Kirk Cox on Saturday urged Fairfax to resign after “multiple, serious credible allegations of…
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10 Thoughts About Ocean’s 8, After Watching It 57 Times This Week During the Polar Vortex
There is weather happening outside. During this weather happening period, HBO has been kind enough to air Ocean’s 8 literally every moment of every day, and I was fortunate enough to catch (at least) 57 of these viewings this week. Here are some thoughts. 1. Although the diamond necklace heist was the point of the…
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If You’re Black and in the Polar Vortex Today, You Have God’s Permission to Be Ashy (For a Day)
There’s a bit in The Broke Diaries—Angela Nissel’s iconic and hilarious memoir about her time at the University of Pennsylvania—where the perpetually hungry Angie is probing her kitchen for something to eat, cheers when she finds a box of grits but discovers (sadly) that the box contains just one solitary grit. I have never been…
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You Don't Have to Ask About My New Baby When You See Me (You Can If You Want To! But It's Fine If You Don't!)
It’s too early to make a definitive determination, but I think my 3-year-old daughter has transitioned out of her Boss Baby stage. She no longer asks to watch Boss Baby when she returns home from preschool, she no longer hurls non sequitur quotes from it at me while she’s in her car seat, and she…
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It Was Always Going to End Like This
There comes a point after you’ve consumed enough movies to be consciously cognizant of the rhythms and cadences of them that you’re able to recognize certain cinematic tells and predict outcomes based on them. A character randomly coughs in the first 15 minutes? He has cancer—or, if it’s a Tyler Perry movie, AIDS—and he’s probably…
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A Screenshot of a Boat Shoe
Spoiled milk-filled boat shoe repurposed as a moat for mice with sentience Tucker Carlson is a person who exists in the world and is paid money to say things on TV. He is, also, a racist. Which is less an accusation or an insult and more just an articulation of a relatively mundane observation. He’s…
