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Why Black Women Should Have the 1st Glass of Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Explained
What is Lemonade? Lemonade is my favorite fruit-related beverage. It’s great with everything—raspberries, artificial raspberry flavor, oranges, iced tea, gin, vodka, post-fellatio conversations about groceries, etc.—which makes it both versatile and delicious. It’s also both the title of Beyoncé’s new album and the hourlong film accompanying it. Wait … Beyoncé has a new album? How…
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Dear White People Who Write Things: Here's How To Write About Beyonce's Lemonade
Yesterday, to culminate one of the two or three Blackest weeks of my lifetime, Beyonce debuted Lemonade, a beautiful, haunting, brilliant, and Black as all the fucks hour-long visual rendering of her new album. The album, also titled Lemonade, was made available on Tidal (sigh) when the film concluded. Naturally, this film and the album dominated pop culture last…
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Prince Was Unapologetically Black Before It Was Cool To Be So
Thursday night, I attended a screening of the Roots reboot at the Tribeca Film Festival. While in the van on the way to the post-screening reception, I met Alondra Nelson — Dean of Social Sciences at Columbia University — and a conversation about Roots segued into a conversation about her work in genealogy, which then…
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Harriet Tubman On The $20 Is, Officially, The Blackest Thing That Will Ever Happen
I was going to create of a list of things Blacker than the face of Harriet Tubman — perhaps the fiercest and baddest person to ever plant a foot on American soil — replacing Andrew Jackson’s on the 20. This list would have included things like a spades game between Nat Turner, Shirley Chisholm, Nikki Giovanni, and…
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4 Things I Learned as a Man on a New Natural-Hair Journey
Late last year I wrote a piece (“The Nappyheaded Black Male Revolution Is On”) about changing my hair for the first time in over a decade, connecting my decision to get a fade and allow it to grow out to the creative hair decisions being made by black males (young and old) around the country.…
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105 Real Black Women More Deserving of Book Deals Than Fake Black Woman Rachel Dolezal
On Wednesday, various news outlets confirmed what post-racial turducken Rachel Dolezal alluded to in her recent interview on the Today show. She did indeed receive a deal to pen a book about race. From The Guardian: Rachel Dolezal, the civil-rights activist who was accused of misrepresenting herself as black last year, has been signed to…
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101 Actual Black Women More Deserving Of Book Deals Than Rachel Dolezal
Yesterday, various news outlets confirmed what post-racial turducken Rachel Dolezal alluded to in her recent interview on the Today show. She did indeed receive a deal to pen a book about race. From The Guardian Rachel Dolezal, the civil-rights activist who was accused of misrepresenting herself as black last year, has been signed to write…
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Questions From BuzzFeed’s ‘27 Questions Black People Have for Black People,’ Ranked From Least to Most Terrible
Along with being so remarkably tone-deaf that its tone-deafness felt intentional, BuzzFeed’s now infamous “27 Questions Black People Have for Black People” actually raised more questions than it answered. Namely, who green-lit this? Were the people in the video actors reading from a script? Or did they come up with their own questions? And where…
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Rachel Dolezal Still Really Wants To Be Black, Y'all, And I Think We Should Let Her
It’s been almost a year since Rachel Dolezal, everyone’s favorite post-racial turducken, emerged in the public eye, claiming she was a Black woman despite being Whiter than Lena Dunham. At Trader Joe’s. In Spokane. Manning the kale souffle sample station. Naturally, the tale of this unambiguously alabaster woman desperately wanting to be a nigga captivated…
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A List Of People Allowed To Make Jokes About Colored People Time, Explained
Who is Hillary Clinton? Hillary Clinton is the name of the made-up politician invented and expertly portrayed by Saturday Night Live’s amazing Kate McKinnon. (Who, btw, is so good in her bits — this “Close Encounter” skit is a classic — that she should just change her name to The Amazing Kate McKinnon.) Stop playing. I…
