white privilege
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Yes, You Can Measure White Privilege
Whenever anyone slips the words “white privilege” into a conversation, it immediately builds an impenetrable wall. For some white people, the words elicit an uneasy feeling because, for them, the term is accusatory without being specific. It is a nebulous concept that seemingly reduces the complex mishmash of history, racism and social phenomena to a…
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The Root’s Jason Johnson Called a Conservative Out for Whitesplaining Racism on MSNBC and It Got Heated
On Wednesday morning The Root’s political editor, Jason Johnson, appeared on MSNBC Live, as he often does, alongside Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union. Johnson is a veteran political analyst, writer and politics professor at Morgan State University. (Although I have no idea how he does all of this, because every time I turn…
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21 Times in Get Out When Chris Should Have Gotten the Hell Out
Although Jordan Peele’s brilliant (and now record-breaking) Get Out inverts classic horror tropes and societal expectations by making the “well-meaning” white people the bogeymen and the black dude the damsel in distress, its dramatic tension still relies on one thing you’ll find in pretty much every other horror film: the protagonist ignoring his gut and…
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White People Don’t Know When to Quit
In the latest case of tone-deaf whiteness, a craft-beer lover in Birmingham, Ala., posted the above picture to Instagram. Really? Some people believe (and by “some people” I mean me) that most white people—and people in general—have tasteless jokes and stereotypes that they are comfortable enough to perpetuate in private or around their friends. But…
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Watch: Michael Eric Dyson Explains How Having White Skin Is the Biggest Handout in History
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America is Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson’s 20th book—and it was his most difficult to write. Inspired by a July 2016 New York Times essay responding to the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Dyson uses Tears We Cannot Stop as an opportunity to…
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Get Out Is a Refreshing, Creepy, Stress-Filled Thriller Unafraid to Comment on Race
When I first watched the trailer for comedian Jordan Peele’s Get Out, I knew that I had to see it, and I wasn’t wrong. It was as if Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was on some type of horrific steroid. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) have been dating five months, and it’s time…
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For Wypipo Who Have Considered Interrupting When Listening Is Enuf
There are invaluable life lessons passed down through generations of black people like invisible family heirlooms. Some are instilled by parents, experience or society, but the most critical ones are learned through a mysterious black osmosis. The first time I heard “soul clapping,” I knew exactly what it meant and how to do it. When…
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‘White Privilege’ Essay Contest Offends Those With White Privilege in Overwhelmingly White Conn. Town
When a committee in the town of Westport, Conn., announced an essay contest on the topic of white privilege, it did so in hopes that it would spark an important conversation in this wealthy coastal town of roughly 27,000 people, 85 percent of whom are white. Instead, the contest offended many of the residents. “In…
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This "Debate" Between Jessica Williams, Shirley MacLaine, And Salma Hayek Is Every Frustration I've Had With White Women
Women of all colors and backgrounds have been fighting for the right to be viewed with just as much humanity as men since we first crawled out of caves. This is a noble cause that all mankind must take up. We all know this. Or at least we should. But somehow whiteness always finds a…
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Perfecting My Jenifer Lewis Face To Fight White Supremacy
My sophomore year in college, I found a surprisingly spacious studio for a reasonable price and made the move from my mama’s basement to a just-off-campus apartment. I had only been in it a week when I realized the house across from me was a frat house, a White one. I don’t recall the name…