theory & essay
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Ferguson Isn't About Black And White. It's About Green.
Robert McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County, was first elected to the post in 1991, and has held the post ever since. He often runs unopposed. He’s been re-elected six times. One of those times came after a 2001 grand jury where he allowed four officers to go free after shooting two unarmed…
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Why #ByeElizabeth Needs To Replace #ByeFelicia
I don’t know how things that become things become things. I just know that one day, something is not a thing. And then, the next day, that thing is a thing. You can argue that the surest way to make a thing a thing is for it to have a celebrity shout out. We can list…
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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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Thanksgiving And Shit
My wife and I are masochists, apparently. Because that would be the only reasonable explanation for us deciding to host somewhere between 30 and 35 members of our family for Thanksgiving this year. Actually, the real explanation is laziness. We’re both from Pittsburgh, which means that every holiday we’ve spent together has been spent shuffling from…
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Darren Wilson Is A Dick. Literally
Darren Wilson is a dick. Not in the figurative sense (although he is that too). No, I came to that conclusion after seeing the first clear images of him — the photos of the injuries he sustained while involved in the life-threatening altercation with the 8’4, 720 pound Michael Brown. Darren Wilson is dick, literally.…
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Ferguson Is Burning
I spent a couple hours this evening at a friend’s going away party. He recently accepted a job overseas, and 50 or so people gathered at SAVOY — a Black-owned restaurant in Pittsburgh’s Strip District — to see him off. The crowd was predominately male; (mostly) Black men ranging from the early 20s to the…
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On Bill Cosby And Living Through The Gray
My favorite episode of The Cosby Show begins innocently enough. Claire Huxtable walks in the house from a long day’s work, kicks off her shoes and falls into the arms of her doting husband, hoping to slumber. Rudy refuses to let her parents rest, though. She traipses down the stairs with a story to tell, a…
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When Being Educated, Rich, and Privileged Doesn't Stop You From Being Black
I often joke with people that I didn’t know I was poor until I got to college. The reason I say this (we weren’t really poor) is because I remember, way back yonder in 1997 when I graced God’s land of Morehouse College, encountering Black folks who came from means. Not that my family was wanting for…