race & politics
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Dear Black Parents: Please Love Your Children So They Won't Grow Up To Be Clarence Thomas
My daughter will be six months old in a few days. She is a smiling, rolling, bouncing, and burping bundle of Blackness. She’s amazing, hilarious, and perfect. She is also a minuscule masochist who doesn’t waste opportunities to find new ways to potentially injure herself. (For instance, just yesterday, while holding her while typing, she decided…
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How To Get Over Your Inane Fear Of Taking A Dump Next To Transgender People
When I went to my office bathroom this past Sunday, I encountered something terrifying that led me to run out shortly after I entered. I heard someone taking a huge dump. A rest-stop-during-a-12-hour-road-trip sized dump. And I want no part of others people’s poo process. It’s why, my freshman year at Lincoln University in PA,…
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Blake Lively's Gentrified Booty, Explained
Who is Blake Lively? For a while I thought she was Sienna Miller. Like, I’d see her and say “That’s Sienna Miller in that movie, apparently.” But she’s not Sienna Miller. And she’s definitely not Scarlett Johansson. Are you sure? Yes. So she’s just Blake Lively? Yes. She is just Blake Lively, a person who…
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Melania Trump Says Her Husband Isn't Hitler. Which Totally Makes Me Think He's Actually Hitler
There’s a brunch party I plan on attending Saturday. There will be people there. Many of whom I will know. Some I will not. Some of these some will (probably) introduce themselves to me. And some I might introduce myself to. The start of those conversations will probably look something like this: “Hey, are you…
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Five Thoughts On The Launch Of ESPN's The Undefeated
1. All — literally every single one — of the Black people I know who happen to work in media in some capacity people have anticipated the launch of The Undefeated, the long-awaited ESPN-backed site intersecting race, sports, and culture. Some excitedly. Some cynically. (Some both.) But the level of interest — which, for various reasons, vacillates…
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George Zimmerman Reminds Us (Again) That Nothing Has Killed Him, Yet
Every several months or so, George Zimmerman, a congealed collection of the pus escaping from a surgically lanced rectum boil, reminds us that he’s still not dead. He has become especially good at this; at inching his way to the recesses of our collective consciousness. And then, right when he’s on the precipice of abject irrelevance, of…
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There's A Video Called "Hoteps Hoteppin" And You Should Watch It Right Now
Why? Well because the first 90 seconds is a great (and hilarious) answer for anyone who asks “What exactly is a hotep? I don’t get it.” And because it was created by Radha Blank, who goes by RadhaMUSprime, writes for Empire, and actually has things like “she’s a GhostFace-meets-Moms-Mabley mash up” and “You can expect…
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On Ta-Nehisi Coates And The Very Real Danger Of "Writing While Black"
I wouldn’t dare compare my level of popularity to the very real (and much scarier) fame Ta-Nehisi Coates possesses. But when reading his “On Homecomings” yesterday — where he lamented that he was forced to back out of buying his dream house in Brooklyn because of safety concerns stemming from his address being widely publicized — two recent…
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How Being A Little Racist Sometimes Can Be A Form Of Self-Care For Black People, Explained
What is racism? According to Merriam-Webster, racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. This base belief has led to myriad race-based social constructs and dynamics. Here in America, for instance, it manifests as a structural/foundational racism that…