racism
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In Defense Of Too Many Of The "Wrong" Type Of Black People On TV
At the moment, Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl — a memoir with a buzz largely fueled by the popularity of her similarly themed webseries — is currently sitting on the New York Times’ bestseller list. Last week, Rae appeared on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, a show selected to replace The Colbert…
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All You Need To Know About Race In America Happened To Me In 90 Seconds Today
It was 10:00am. The Wife Person surprised me with tickets to the Cavs/Heat game yesterday, so we made the two hour drive to Cleveland, stayed overnight, and drove back early this morning. I took her directly to work, and drove back home. “Home” for us is an old high school building that had been closed…
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Acknowledging Dark Skinned Black Male Privilege
The word “privilege” is so often used as a catch-all to describe preferential racial treatment that it loses its meaning. When something is used to describe everything, it tends not to describe anything. That said, although darker-skinned Black males don’t possess the type of privilege most commonly associated with certain social, political, and economic advantages…
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Why I Don't Talk About Race With My White Family
I came across this very interesting piece on Gawker the other day about a Black man (he’s mixed, but ya know, he’s Black) talking about a discussion he got into about race with his white cousin who was pretty much of the mindset that racism was more or less a figment of Black imagination and…
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Pittsburgh Police Chief Says "Racism Is Bad." Some Officers Get Offended. Chief Replies "Sorry Not Sorry"
To get a better context of the environment new Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay recently entered, it would be helpful to know each of the following things: 1. Out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country, the Pittsburgh metropolitan area is the 2nd Whitest. 2. There were 66 homicides in the city in…
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Dear Black People: Blackness Is Not A Disease
Implicit bias has replaced overt racism as the primary cause of disparities that disadvantage Black people. It’s not that there are no overt bigots anymore, but our society has made most bigotry so stigmatized that it has been forced to go underground, into the unconscious. You will have people who are absolutely sure they hold…
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An Argument For Not Blocking Your Ridiculously Stupid And/Or Racist Facebook Friends
The last two weeks of November produced a vortex of news stories (Ferguson, Cosby, Ray Rice) everyone seems to have an opinion on. And, when everyone seems to have an opinion on something, that “everyone” includes “stupid and/or insensitive and/or racist motherfuckers.” Nowhere was this more evident than it was on Facebook, as these weeks…
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"Nigga" Is A Part Of My Vocabulary. Here's Why
The Washington Post is currently running a comprehensive interactive about the “n-word.” Titled “Redefining the Word,” the feature gives an historical context for why nigga is entrenched in our culture and interviews dozens of people for their thoughts and feelings about the word today. They didn’t interview me. But, if they did, this is what…