Opinion
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Colonoscopies Are Easy! Colonoscopy Prep Is Hell on Earth!
The tragic death of Chadwick Boseman has inspired increased conversation about the importance of colonoscopies to catch colon cancer and other colorectal disorders. The CDC recommends that you wait until you’re 50 to start screening. But, since Black people are 20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer and 40 percent more likely…
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Why Jason Whitlock Is Not a Black Man
This article contains two opinions: Jason Whitlock is not stupid. Jason Whitlock is Black. The rest is fact. Whether you like him or not, most people share these opinions of Jason Whitlock. Although I often disagree with his viewpoint, I understand that his function in life is to serve as a funnel through which anti-Black…
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35 Things I Thought Were Signs of Extreme Wealth When I Was Younger
1. A garage 2. A basketball hoop on said garage 3. A fiberglass basketball hoop (if you had this, I assumed you were Warren Buffet) 4. A pantry 5. A finished basement 6. A family with two cars 7. A salary of over $60,000 a year 8. Annual family vacations 9. Having separate hoop shoes…
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It's Fine to Just Cry, Too
I keep coming back to resilience. And how I hate how we consider it to be an essential and inherent and invaluable characteristic of Blackness. I hate it because it’s dehumanizing. Being born Black don’t make us any more resilient than anyone else. We ain’t stronger. We ain’t tougher. We’ve just been given more shit to…
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: The More Things Change
On August 25, 2017, The Root changed the world when it began a feature called the Clapback Mailbag. Back then I thought white people would NEVER stop being racist but I must admit I was wrong. We’re really proud of the part we played in changing the national zeitgeist. Thanks to us, you get to…
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VAN JONES IS AARON BURR!
It finally dawned on me yesterday, after reading that Van Jones said Jared Kushner has “the dopest job in the world.” Which is such a Van Jones-ass thing to do and say—and not just because he’s praising the effete criminal dickwad who’s what would happen if every Jared ever and every 28-year-old MBA ever were…
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Abolish All These Damn Zoom Work Calls So I Can Be Naked While Working at Home Again
So it’s not so much that working while naked is a thing I need to do. I’m anemic, so I get cold easily. (I am the person who, immediately after checking into a hotel room, turns the thermostat to 80, leaves and doesn’t come back until the room is sufficiently toasty.) And it doesn’t feel…
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20 Years of Bringing It: What Bring It On Did for the Culture and the Conversation Around Cultural Theft
“Every time we get some, y’all come trying to steal it, putting some blonde hair on it, and calling it something different,” Isis (Gabrielle Union), captain of the fictional East Compton Clovers cheer squad, tells Rancho Carne Toros leader Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) in a confrontational scene during the cult classic film Bring It On. The…
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New York City Is Dead, Because I Killed It When I Left and Went Back Home to Pittsburgh: An Essay About Murder
“The city is dead,” I said, aloud, to no one, while each step I took crashed the same cement I’d fallen in love with. The pizza box I lugged with me—filled, just 32 minutes earlier, with a New York City pizza slice—was empty, except for crumbs. Heh. A metaphor, for the dead city. “A metaphor,…