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How to Make White People Uncomfortable
1. Be black. 2. Be not white. 3. Be not white and not American. 4. Tell the truth. 5. Cite facts. 6. Talk about the past. 7. Talk about the present day. 8. Talk about the future. 9. Say things like “Hi” and “Excuse me” and “Perhaps, if I were so inclined, I’d meet you…
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Mark Zuckerberg Is a Grown-Ass (White) Man, so Stop Talking About Him Like He’s a Kid
Admittedly, when juxtaposed against the assemblage of 934-year-old white men who make up the Senate, Mark Zuckerberg’s relative youth is conspicuous, as it would also be if he were in a room with a troop of vampires, or perhaps the exhumed and propped-up bodies of Genghis Khan and—I don’t know—a fucking velociraptor. “Wow,” I would…
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US Cabinet Members, America’s Least Christian White People, Have a Regular Bible-Study Group
I grew up in a Christian household. Both of my parents were raised Baptist, and they raised me as one, but I wouldn’t quite say that we were practicing. We didn’t go to church very often, and we mostly just prayed before eating and while hoping that the Pirates would win the pennant. And while…
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20 Words and Phrases White People Just Ain’t Allowed to Say
We already know about nigga/nigger, but there are more! Really, no one—white, black, Kappa, etc.—should ever say “ghetto” again, ever. Nothing at all, now that you’ve said that. Is officially on the list because too many black people use “ninja” as a substitute for “nigga,” and all popular “nigga” substitutes are banned from white mouths.…
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10 Reasons the N-Word Is the Greatest Word in the English Language
1. Because “nigga” rhymes with a shitload of things, which comes in handy during freestyle rap cyphers at 3 a.m. at IHOP. 2. Because it can be any part of speech you want it to be—a noun (“Pass me that nigga”), a pronoun (“Pass me that nigga, nigga”), an adjective (“Pass me that nigga cheese,…
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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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I Tried Red Lobster’s Lobster and Cheddar Bay Biscuit Waffles and Lived to Tell About It
You know how, if you’re watching a game on TV and it happens to feature LeBron James or Tom Brady or someone else who has perfected their craft and has the prototypical body and mind for their position, the commentators might say something like, “LeBron was born to play basketball”? Well, considering all available evidence—my…
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I’m Playing in an Alumni Basketball Game in May, and I Have No Regrets About Agreeing to Do This!
All things considered—and furiously knocking on the closest wood possible—I think I’m in pretty good shape for a man of my advanced age (39). I am not, however, in the shape I’d like to be in. Admittedly, this want to be in better shape is at least partially cosmetic. I want to have more stamina…
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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…
