culture
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BBWs Are Popping, and We Have the Sauce
Recently, a big girl hopped up onto the checkout counter at Walmart to make an important announcement that everyone needed to hear: BBWs are popping. We have the sauce. When Senior Editor Stephen A. Crockett Jr. posted this video in our Slack chat early Friday afternoon, I felt it in my spirit. That big girl…
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‘It’s OK to Be White,’ Explained
Another controversial wypipo movement has reared its ugly head, so we thought we’d— I’m not making anything up. There is actually a movement dedicated to telling white people that it’s OK to be white. Well, what do you call it when a conservative is hired to give an “It’s OK to Be White” speech at…
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Tracing Your Roots: How Were My Ancestors’ Lives in 19th-Century Arkansas?
In a common scenario for African Americans, the paper trail disappears once a reader gets to the 19th century. Dear Professor Gates: I have been working on my family tree for years. I am having difficulties finding information on my paternal great-grandfather. His name was Leon Turner (born in 1901) and he married Birdie Todd…
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On This World AIDS Day, Where Do We Go From Here?
As we roll around to yet another World AIDS Day, it’s clear that the HIV epidemic, which is still very much an epidemic, has faded into the background in a lot of our activism. More than 35 years into the fight, the urgency of years past has faded—in large part because of the gains made…
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#MeToo: When Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Leaves You Feeling Powerless
In December 1997, three months after turning 20 years old, I graduated from college. In an effort to make some money before I left for grad school the following summer, and because nobody lives in my mother’s house for free, I got a job. Using my fabulous brand-new biology degree, I became a security specialist…
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5 Times James Baldwin Read White America
Today marks 30 years since James Baldwin’s passing, and America seems to be as ignorant of its inherent racism as it was when Baldwin was writing and being an all-around brilliant man, scholar and activist. Sometimes I like to imagine a James Baldwin fan fiction of what he’d be doing today if he were still…
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Does Size Really Matter?
In one of my previous posts, I asserted that I am, in fact, a size queen. I am also queen-size, but that’s a different post for a different time. Suffice it to say that when I made my claim to size-queen-dom, there were many who objected to my saying it and felt that it a)…
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Devon Wade Must Be Remembered for Disrupting the Prison Pipeline, Not Merely for How He Died
I will never forget the first—and, unfortunately, what would be the only—time I had the pleasure of meeting Devon Tyrone Wade, the Columbia University Ph.D. student killed late Sunday night. He was charming, had a smile that lit the entire room and demanded attention in the most subtle ways. Through his social media posts, it…
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Girls and Gays: On the Tenuous Relationship Between Black Women and Queer Black Folk
This past weekend, I was winding down after a fairly long Thanksgiving weekend by engaging in one of my guilty pleasures: The Real Housewives of Atlanta. After a long day, I was ready for some petty, funny mess. What I was not ready for was being blindsided by a transphobic “read.” The read in question?…
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NFL Players Just Sold Kaepernick’s Protests for $100 Million. Are They Sellouts or Heroes?
A group of players in the National Football League accepted an offer from NFL owners for $100 million for social justice causes in exchange for … umm … we want to use a term that expresses the exact sentiment while still conveying a modicum of journalistic integrity. We think the most precise way to describe…