clapback mailbag

Today, there is no lede. Yesterday, the staff at The Root received this email From: MattTo: The Root Good afternoon, I love The Root, and you’ve got a great community of regular commenters on your site, but (as I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about) you have quite a few regular and not-so-regular trolls stirring up…

Some people believe that white supremacists spew the n-word, burn crosses on lawns and spend their spare time practicing their Nazi salute. I wish. I wish all white supremacists were all scraggly white men who could be identified by their Nazi armbands or their evil mustaches. If only they wore name tags or had a…

I know I’ve made fun of white people in the past but I hate being negative all the time. So today’s Clapback mailbag is dedicated to all the things I truly admire about our Caucasian brethren. Alexa, play “My Favorite Things.” Our first letter contains four things I love about people who stick their feet…

I’ve been waiting for this. Four years ago, I stumbled across a story about Judge Ralph D. Gants. Gants was known as a “fearless advocate for racial justice” and used his position to challenge every part of the criminal justice system. Shortly after Gants was appointed as Massachusetts’ chief justice, an attorney insisted that the…

I’m going to stop being so offensive. From now on, I promise to respond to the violence, theft and downright absurdity of white supremacy with eloquently composed reactions that ruffle no feathers and leave no one feeling offended. From this day forward, I won’t call the white people who inflict pain “white people who inflict…

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…

Managing Editor Genetta Adams is off today, so I do not have to adhere to the usual format. Every week, I try to explain to Genetta that the Mailbag doesn’t require a lede but, instead of listening to my argument, she insists that I follow the rules of journalism and inform the audience of the…

I was a shitty brother. I never abused my sisters. I just subjected them to years of mental abuse and torture. Perhaps the greatest example of my emotional terrorism was my stance on the bathroom. Before my mother returned home from work every day, she required us to clean the entire house. My sisters and…

This week’s Clapback Mailbag is about strawmen. When people try to disprove a reasonable argument by distorting the premise of the debate, there’s always a leap in logic that you might not notice unless you examine it closely. For instance, people who refute “black lives matter” with “but what about black-on-black crime” always forget to…