Some Thoughts
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To Trayvon, on Your 25th Birthday
Dear Trayvon, Today would have been your 25th birthday and, as I write this letter, I am listening to Aretha Franklin sing “Never Grow Old.” If I was predisposed to a belief in an eternal paradise, I would imagine that Queen Aretha hummed this hymn when she spotted you at her welcoming ceremony. Perhaps she…
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Black History, According to White People
Mithridates the Great was one of the Roman Empire’s greatest foes and claimed to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, who died by poisoning. Mithridates’ father died from poison. His father died from poison. His mother tried to poison him. Needless to say, Mithridates the Great was obsessed with poison. So, the king created…
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Maybe Meghan Markle Was Just Tired of Eating Baked Beans and Eggs on Toast for Breakfast
Any list of the pleasant surprises from the months of book-related touring, talks, events, and appearances in 2019 would include the week I spent in London in May. It was my first time in England—a place I never had any desire to visit. (I’ve seen Closer seven times, which I figured was enough London for…
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An Open Letter to All the Disrespectful Negroes Who Went to Ghana and Ditched Us in Triflin'-Ass America
Firstly, I hate each and every one of you. Secondly, I’m not even sure if “firstly” is a word—it felt awkward in my mouth, like peanut butter on potato chips—but it fits with what I’m saying, so it will be today. But thirdly (and most importantly), why did you do this to us? Of course, “us”…
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Christmas Vs. Kwanzaa: The Tale of the Tape
I was raised in a fundamentalist church that believed in the seventh-day Sabbath, tambourines and neverending, four-nights-a-week services that lasted well into Arsenio Hall’s opening monologue. Apparently, God’s eternal kingdom specifically forbade rap music, brazen women who had premarital sex (if you were a man it wasn’t ok but it didn’t decrease your value) and…
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30 Questions for the Way Too Aggressive Card Chip Reader at Target Last Night
1. When I was done making my purchase yesterday—a Wilton Icing Writing Black Pen and three Sterilite Clearview Latch Boxes with purple latches—was it really necessary to say “Remove your card … NOW?” 2. Don’t you know that putting “NOW” in there was overkill? 3. And also rude as fuck? 4. What happened to “Remove…
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For Colored Dads Who Have Considered Kindness When French Fries Wasn’t Enuf
I planned to explain my leave of absence from The Root before it happened. Then, during my wife’s routine doctor’s visit on the last Friday of August, everything went to shit. We thought we had a week and a half before she would give birth but she was on the phone telling me that the…
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Fake Christmas Trees Are the Bhad Bhabie of Christmas Trees
I was at my grandmother’s house when I first saw the TurboGrafx-16 of Christmas trees. My mother had explained that my grandparents were older and they didn’t have the time nor the energy to fuss over a real tree. I was probably around eight and I was excited to see a fake tree since the…
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Quiz: How 'Black, But Not Like You Regular Blacks' Are You?
1. As a kid, what music did you listen to? A) I was that eclectic and special and unusual black kid who listened to Steely Dan and Jodeci. I think that’s why I got into Brown. (14 points) B) Whatever I wanted to listen to. I don’t understand this question. (0 points) C) Mostly stuff…
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If You Want to Protect Black Art, Protect Black Critique
I will never forget the day my skin thickened. I was a baby-faced undergrad student sitting in a circle of my literary peers, awaiting my academic doom, also known as the “writing workshop.” My heart raced with an urgent fury and my stomach twisted into a knot only an Eagle Scout could untie. There I…