Very Smart Brothas

  • Love & Hip Hop NY Ep. 505 Recap: Half On A Baby

    Happy Belated MLK Day everyone. I hope you guys capped off a weekend chock full of ill-advised party flyers with condemning Peter Gunz to the ninth circle of hell. And if your company didn’t give you the day off…well, they’re racist. We begin yesterday’s fairly mediocre episode with watching Peter Gunz get on the fast…

  • 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…

  • 10 Thoughts On "Light Girls"

    1. Like it or not, a show, song, role of hot buttered wax called “Light Girls” is going to be met with a million side-eyes BEFORE anybody even sees it. It’s an uphill battle from the second the title hits the ether. To that end, there’s nearly no way this can be successful by doing…

  • The 10 Black People You'll Only Find On The Internet

    There are people on the internet. Billions and shit. And, if you spend enough time on the internet, you will meet enough people to discover distinct personality types. Most of these people are the type of people you know offline. And, even if you don’t personally know them, you’re aware of their existence. But, everyone…

  • 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…

  • Was The HBCU Experience Necessary For My Success? Maybe. Maybe Not.

    I have a friend who I consider to be uber-successful. I have very successful friends. Every one of my immediate closest friends from college has at least one advanced degree. A few have Ph.D.s. Some own their own businesses. Some of us are married. Some of us are parents. Point is, everybody, on paper and…

  • Dear Black People: It's Okay To Be Mad Selma Was Snubbed By The Academy

    In the next month, you will hear, read, and possibly even talk about how Selma was largely shut out of this year’s Academy Awards. While the film was nominated for Best Picture — a category that has nine nominees and makes you wonder if Selma was placed there just so we’d shut up about it…

  • Sorority Sisters Was Canceled Because It's A Shitty, Stupid, And Boring-Ass Show…And That's It

    The “trainwreck” metaphor is used so often when discussing the appeal of certain reality television shows that it’s become cliche. But, being cliche doesn’t make it untrue. There aren’t many other ways to encapsulate how something so seemingly unwatchable can become watchable. At their best, The Real Basketball Wives of Hip-Hop manages to pull this off. They…

  • Why Nancy Grace Vs 2 Chainz Is The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Seen This Week

    1. Nancy Grace is unbelievable. Not unbelievable in a figurative sense. (Although, she is that too.) But literally unbelievable. As I was watching her debate 2 Chainz about whether marijuana should be legal, I found it difficult to concentrate because I was distracted by the fact that Nancy Grace is an actual person who actually…

  • Love & Hip Hop NY Ep. 504 Recap: Bad Choices Everywhere!

    If you’re hanging off of a cliff and and had to choose between Peter Gunz and Stevie J to save you, how far can you jump without fatally injuring yourself? Yesterday’s episode featured Peter Gunz doing his damnedest to cement a first-round ballot vote into the Fuckboy Hall of Fame. I’m sincerely at the point…