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The Best Part of Lovecraft Country's Premiere? What Happens to the Racist-est Racists
Of the several nits I have to pick with Watchmen—a show I am still infatuated with—the most prominent (and also the pettiest) is that the murderous racists didn’t die violent and painful enough deaths. One (Senator Keene) was literally liquified because of his own ego, and the other racists were zapped to oblivion by Lady…
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Anxiety Is for Girls, Gays, Wimps, and White People
The second biggest lie that I allow people who’ve read my book, and who’ve heard me speak about my book, to believe is that I’m brave. “How did you find the courage,” they ask, during Q&As at independent bookstores, and through emails and (now) Zoom talks, “to be so forthcoming and vulnerable about your neuroses…
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COVID-19 Made Me a One-Issue Voter: Get the Man Responsible for 165,000 American Deaths the Fuck Out
So I guess there’s no point in belaboring my premise since it’s right there, with a bullhorn, in the title, but I do want to clarify. Getting the motherfucker(s) most responsible for the way COVID-19 has devastated America the fuck out of office is the thing I care about most right now. But it’s not…
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Why (Some) Men Seem to be So Bothered by Cardi B's 'WAP,' Explained
This is dumb. What? Your entire premise. What’s wrong with it? Why would anyone in their right mind be bothered by waffles and pancakes? They’re delicious breakfast and brunch staples. The Anthony Davis of breakfast and brunch. And, even if you had celiac disease, there are gluten-free options. Do these men hate french toast too?…
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If Kanye Somehow Stays in the Presidential Race, It'll Hurt Trump, Not Biden
“No, I don’t have any bottled water” was my reply, 12 years ago, when two women—one of whom I was dating; the other was her friend—visited my apartment for the first time. I’d just offered the friend some Kool-Aid, and she looked at me like I’d just offered her a glass of elephant backwash, and…
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Do You Know What 'Brolic' Means? (And If Not, Where Are You From?)
While walking through some mud at Moraine State Park last weekend, I thought about how “mud” is one of those perfect words that fits exactly what it is. Mud looks and acts and feels and smells exactly like something we should call “mud.” It would make no sense if the word for mud was something…
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I Just Want to Be 'Normal,' and I Need a Therapist to Convince Me It Doesn't Exist
“It is weird?” I asked, in a message I copied and pasted to several people through text, on Gchat, and in Facebook Messenger, six weeks ago. The question was a followup to a revelation I also shared with the same people: I’d recently discovered, while finally seriously researching potential therapists—after telling myself for years that…
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I Hope My Ancestors Were Goat Herders, Not Kings and Queens
Did Wakanda have housing projects? Payday lenders? A Wakandan Dollar General? These are questions I have whenever I watch Black Panther, and I’m sure there are comic book people who can provide answers. They are also dumb questions because Wakanda doesn’t exist, and whoever invented that nation could also invent a world where royalty can…
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I Just Want to Hit the Brunch LeBron James Apparently Went to Last Night
So the NBA bubble thing is weird. And the social justice messaging on the jerseys is dumb. So dumb. SO DUMB. But I am also weird and dumb, and I am fascinated by the uncanny valley of the NBA’s reboot. The crowds are computer-generated avatars! Some people in the gyms are wearing masks and some…
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White People Won't Save You
There are tens of thousands of Americans—nurses and uncles; bus drivers and doctors; aunties and baristas; grad students and my friend—who were killed by COVID-19 because they just weren’t able to escape it. Perhaps their occupation was high-risk. Perhaps they were unable to effectively social distance. Perhaps they had underlying—and white supremacy-induced—medical conditions that made…
