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Queen Sugar Hits This Dad Right in the Feels
I love Queen Sugar. Let’s start there. I’d take Queen Sugar on a $200 date, juju on the beat with it, and cook greens, beans, tomatoes and potatoes just so it would have something to take home in case it got hungry. For those who aren’t familiar, the Ava DuVernay-helmed show is the story of…
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My Daughter Is Not the Best Dancer in Hip-Hop Class and I Feel a Way About It
I’m a dance dad. While I’m not standing outside the studio yelling at my daughter to get in formation or tighten up those pirouettes, I do find myself at dance class at least once a week and, on special occasions, twice a week. See, my daughter has been taking dance lessons since, I believe, she…
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Kidz Bop Is the Best Hustle Ever
For a vast many people who haven’t put birth control to the test (and failed), Kidz Bop isn’t a thing. If you don’t have children, there’s literally zero reason to know of its existence. But for a lot of us with kids old enough to comprehend, process and regurgitate what they hear, the music struggle…
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A Letter to My 3 Black Children About How America Will See Them
Dear children, You are kind. You are smart. You are important. It’s funny to me how a few unintentionally hilarious lines from a movie called The Help, which you will probably never see, actually seem important to say to you today. And every day for the rest of your lives. They’ve always been true words, but…
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Why Jeremih’s Song ‘Oui’ Bothers the Hell Out of Me
I’m not a fan of Jeremih. I’m also not not a fan of Jeremih. In fact, Jeremih exists in a space where I typically forget he exists until one of his songs pops up on a Sirius station I listen to and I read the info and I’m like, “Wow, he’s still around, eh? Well,…
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Do You Really Have to Keep Inviting a Friend to Parties When the Friend Always Says No?
Every day across this land (and presumably across lands across the world), butt-hurt friends and associates get into their feelings about an alleged slight. You’ve been there. I’ve been there. We all scream for ice cream. You’re doing what we all do during the course of the day, skimming your Facebook timeline or perusing Instagram…
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That Time Getting Hit On by a Lame Dude Made Me Sympathize With Women
Once upon a time, pretty long ago, I used to manage a nightclub in Washington, D.C. At this particular nightclub, Liv (RIP), we had a rotating list of parties throughout the week. On Friday nights, we had gay night. This was always typically a good night for us for a few different reasons: 1) Gay…
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When Nia Long Told Larry King That J. Cole Wasn’t Too Young, I Lost My Mind
To say that Nia Long is a national treasure is an understatement. Long has been a part of most of our lives since at least the mid-’90s, when she played Beulah “Lisa” Wilkes on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and when a visionary Ice Cube saw fit to cast her in cult classic Friday. Thank…
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Rest in Power, Afeni Shakur; ‘You Are Appreciated’
We are having what can be considered one of the blackest years on record. Larry Wilmore dropping the n-word at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is peak blackness no matter which side of the appropriate aisle you sit on. In fact, in any other year it would be the runaway winner, except, moments prior to…
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I Kind of Wish Hillary Clinton Would Stop Trying to Connect With the Black Community
Even though it’s political season and there are lots of commercials that indicate that every vote counts—vote or die and s—t—forcing politicians to do everything to court the votes of communities not like theirs, I kind of wish Hillary Clinton would stop trying to win the black vote now. Or, at least, cut the s—t.…
