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An Open Letter to the Men Whose Girlfriends and Wives Saw Black Panther and Now Want to Move to Wakanda
Like everyone else, you were excited to see Black Panther. You’ve been waiting for it for years, got excited for the trailers and even read all of the newer Ta-Nehisi Coates- and Roxane Gay- and Yona Harvey-penned comic books. And while you didn’t go full Wakandan cosplay for the premiere, you did wear all black.…
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Yet Another Reason Why Shuri From Black Panther Is the Greatest Disney Princess Ever
If “Don’t scare me like that, colonizer” wasn’t already enough to give Black Panther’s Shuri (depicted amazingly by Letitia Wright) the crown as the Greatest Disney Princess Ever—it was, but let’s just pretend that it wasn’t—there are dozens more reasons why she deserves it. In the last half of the movie alone, she saved a…
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We Need to Start Barking at White People Who Speak Out of Turn
Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for the film Black Panther. Black Panther’s Wakanda is a near-utopic vision of how a country could look; perhaps the best depiction of Afrofuturism ever captured on film. There were thriving and ideologically diverse cities surrounded by expansive and bucolic countrysides. There was modern technology perfectly weaved into cultural…
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Who’s Slept With More Women: Donald Trump While Married or Wilt Chamberlain?
It’s telling how fascinated Donald Trump and the people connected to him seem to be with the suspected sexual prowess and/or deviance of black men. There’s Ivanka Trump’s reported curiosity with mulatto cocks. There’s Sean Hannity, who suspected “secret sperm” in Kehinde Wiley’s depiction of Barack Obama. Which, hopefully, marks the very last time I…
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Whiteness Means It’s Never Your Fault
One of the few somewhat positive aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency (and really, Donald Trump’s entire stint as a political figure) is that he’s an easy example and a synopsis of America’s patent-pending brand of white supremacy—a concept that, even for those who regularly study and speak about it, can be difficult to articulate in…
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Schools Are Supposed to Be Safe
My first job out of college was as a full-time substitute teacher at Wilkinsburg Junior/Senior High School. A week into my time there, the ninth-grade English teacher unexpectedly quit, and I took over that classroom for the reminder of the year. I have myriad takeaways and memories from that six-month stretch and the rest of…
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5 Books I’m Reading Now Since the Really Dumb and Self-Defeating Book Fast I Was On Is Finally Over
I am going to attempt to explain why I intentionally went an entire year without reading a new book. I am not quite sure I can find the words to articulate why I did this. And, even if I do find those words, I’m not quite sure my book fast will make any sense. But…
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A List of Things I’m Qualified to Critique, Since Apparently You’re Only Allowed to Critique Something if You’re an Expert Now
On Monday morning, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled its official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama. I thought they were nice and cool and sleek and shit, but some others did not. But, then, some people were mad at the people who did not, like, “You can’t critique art if you’re not an expert on…
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Are You Black Enough to Watch Black Panther? A Quiz
Black Panther premieres to the general public this week. And as we all already know, it will be the blackity, black, black, black, black, black, blackest thing that will ever happen in the history of black people, blackness and people. So black that instead of ticket stubs, the box office will give you a reparations…
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The 10 Whitest Things About the Woman Who Flushed Her Emotional-Support Hamster Down the Toilet at the Airport
Like sandwich cake, video games, Mary Kay distributing and trapping, there are levels to this whiteness shit. In Pittsburgh alone, there are at least 26 different grades of whiteness, including garden-variety Yinzer whiteness, Appalachian-adjacent whiteness, well-meaning Patagonia whiteness, Lululemon whiteness and Ben Roethlisberger. And sometimes, as in the story about Belen Aldecosea—the Florida woman who,…
