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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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Apparently a Wax Museum in Niagara Falls Thinks This Sculpture of a White Manager at Hot Topic Is Beyoncé
Full disclosure: I am not an expert on wax. I didn’t study wax history in college; I haven’t been to a wax museum in decades; I didn’t attend 2017’s National Candle Association Annual Conference and Expo; and the only wax I’ve ever been intimate with is what my ears produce. Still, despite this obvious ignorance…
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So … Um … I Think Politico Just Published an Argument for Slavery. In 2018 (Yes, That Slavery)
On Tuesday, Politico published “Sponsor an Immigrant Yourself”—a thought exercise from people allegedly named “Eric Posner” and “Glen Weyl” that attempts to solve our immigration debate by thinking so far out of the box that the box now can only be seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. They’re so out of the box, in fact,…
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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,…
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10 Questions We Really Wish Quincy Jones Had Answered
Quincy Jones’ recent viral interviews have proved that he’s thoroughly fuck-deprived. And also, to quote the homie Sai Grundy, “the antithesis of Sway”—because while Sway AIN’T GOT THE ANSWERS, Quincy Jones definitely does. He has so many answers, in fact, that we’d like him to put his Negrodamus powers to good use and solve some…
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The Criticism of Jacob Copeland’s Mom Is Unfair (and a Tiny Bit Racist, Too)
The entire spectacle of national signing day is an exercise in absurdity. It’s absurd that major-conference college football is such a behemoth that the decisions made by 17- and 18-year-olds are nationally televised events with press conferences, pep rallies and parades. It’s absurd that these decisions matter enough to create (and end) jobs and shift…
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So the Cavs Just Traded Everyone Except LeBron and LeBron’s Bigen
I began writing this at 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I’m sharing this information with you just in case, in the time between literally right now as I’m typing this sentence and the time this is actually published, the Cavs also decide to trade Kevin Love, LeBron James’ barber, Tyronn Lue’s suits, a rotisserie chicken…
