Who is Donald Trump? Donald Trump is a billionaire Bornean orangutan who escaped from the Pittsburgh Zoo 69 years ago and is now, inexplicably, the front-runner to receive the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race. If you forget for a moment the horror of the realization that a Bornean orangutan is potentially months away…

As it was for many others, the news of the death of Malik Taylor deeply resonated with and saddened me. But my feelings about this didn’t have much to do with his iconic status and/or my relationship with his music. Although my backpack is as massive as any other hip-hop fan’s­—shake it and a Soundbombing…

So, I’m kinda new to all of this new age social-justice stuff. Of course, I’ve always been aware of what racism and sexism and bias meant, but some of the terminology used to describe specific examples of it—i.e., microaggressions, white privilege, street harassment, etc.—were also new to me and it took a while to understand…

Last week, in response to the lynching photo found at a Joe’s Crab Shack in Minnesota, I wrote a piece explaining “post-racial racism” (which has also been referred to as “Chad Crow”—Jim Crow’s laid-back cousin): In post-racial 21st-century America, no one actually wants to admit to being racist. They’ll do racist things, say racist words,…

You can say many things about Ben Carson, the back-ordered, decaffeinated coffee machine who recently dropped out of the presidential race. Iconic surgeon. Popeyes enthusiast. Vigilante. Black History Month book-report muse. Delusional motherf—ker. But one thing you cannot do is doubt his blackness bona fides. Yes, his actual politics, if enacted, would have put America back to 1953.…