race & politics
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Somebody Get Your Confederate Flag Wavin' Cousin Karen Cooper
There’s always one. Some of your families have two. But there is AT LEAST one in every damn family. Meet your play cousin Karen Cooper, a former New Yorker and former member of the Nation of Islam, turned Confederate flag wavin’, southern slave owner apologist living in Richmond, Virginia. How a Black person moves to…
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On Being Black And Southern (And From South Carolina) At Times Like This
I’ve been a proud Black man from South Carolina for a few weeks north of 36 years. And, in all honesty, my state has always confused me. If I were ever asked to play word association with it, I would begin by telling the poor fool who asked the question to “grab a chair” because this…
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Correction: Bree Newsome Actually Just Did The Blackest Thing I've Ever Seen
Yesterday, I wrote that a Black president singing “Amazing Grace” at a Black church on national TV was the Blackest thing that has ever happened. I said it passed peak Blackness and entered gravitational time dilation Blackness. Dark matter, event horizon Blackness. Undiscovered dimension Blackness, redefining our understanding of how Black Blackness could be. And then…
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Moments Blacker Than The Black President Singing "Amazing Grace" In A Black Church On National TV
1. Harriet Tubman. Marcus Garvey. Nina Simone. And Jesus. Together. On Juneteenth. The first Juneteenth. Playing spades. And eating sunflower seeds. BBQ sunflower seeds. Ranch BBQ sunflower seeds. At Rucker Park. But not Rucker Park in Harlem. But a Rucker Park replica in Lagos, constructed specifically for this purpose. And while the Harlem Globetrotters are…
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Don Lemon: The Troll Who Will Save America
It’s unfortunate that President Obama’s use of “nigger” became the biggest story from his recent interview with Marc Maron, because the reflexively (and grandstandingly) heated debate about that word has obscured a great point. “Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.” It feels counterintuitive, insulting even, to suggest that…
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Fuck Your Confederate Flag, Cuh!
I hate that gotdamn flag. I always have. I’m a Southerner, which means that I’m super familiar with it. Not only that, I did my high schoolin’ in the great state of Alabama in the mid-90s. This means that there were high school year book quotes from Confederate generals and shouts of “The South Shall…
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White Murderer Says Nigger? "It's Not About Race!" Black President Says Nigger? "Let's Talk About Race!"
To give you an idea of how bizarre America’s relationship with race is, consider the following: 1. The two most talked about stories in the country last week were about… A) A ridiculous White woman who seems to believe she’s Shirley Chisholm but is just the real-life Kirk Lazarus. B) A White man who went into a…