Very Smart Brothas
-
In Defense of Following and Rooting for Players Instead of Teams
It didn’t take much convincing for me to agree with my dad’s plan—that it was in my best interest to leave Sterrett Classical Academy in the city and transfer to St. Bartholomew (a private Catholic school in the suburbs with a stellar academic and athletic reputation) and repeat the sixth grade when making the switch.…
-
Dear People Who Don’t Wash Your Hands After Using the Bathroom: WTF Is Wrong With You? I Hate You
Today, on this eighth day of January in the year of our Lord 2018, I went to utilize the restroom in this public workspace that has been made available to me. Upon entering this bathroom, I noticed two gentlemen at stalls relieving themselves. I assume that’s what they were doing. They could have been drawing…
-
Mudbound and Other Films That Get Black Folks Pissed Off at White People
Over the holiday break, I finally got around to watching Netflix’s Mudbound, last year’s period drama by director Dee Rees (who also wrote and directed 2011’s magnificent Pariah). The film was adapted from the 2008 Hillary Jordan novel about two families—one black and one white—attempting to stay afloat by sharecropping the same patch of hard…
-
Uncle Denzel Reading a Takeout Menu During the Golden Globes Is the Blackest Thing That Ever Happened This Week
Denzel Washington is a living icon—a man so ensconced in our collective cultural consciousness that even his voice, his walk and his facial expressions are considered independent sentient beings. He was at the Golden Globes last night as his friend Oprah Winfrey received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement—an honor he also received…
-
When You’re Leaving a Tip, How Important Is It That the Server Actually Sees You Leave It?
We’ve all been there before. You’re at some sort of café or coffee shop. Or, perhaps, a neighborhood bodega or pizzeria. Maybe even at a bar. You order your food or your drink. The service is good. Not exceptional, but professional, courteous and efficient. This also happens to be a day you’re carrying cash, so…
-
Jimmy Jackson From Waterbury, Conn., ‘Packing That Thing, Too’ and Being Clapback-Ready Is the Blackest Thing I’ve Ever Seen This Week
Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Probably not. And you probably never wanted to. So let me ask another question: Have you ever been in a situation and thought of the perfect thing to say … too late? You see, some of us out there miss our opportunities in life.…
-
The 10 Best Worst Black Videos of All Time, Ranked
I love a good bad movie. You know them: Meteor Man, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, Undercover Brother [Editor’s note: Undercover Brother is a brilliant movie, making it good good. —P.J.], Pootie Tang, Crash. Films that are laughably absurd, either on purpose or by accident, but still manage to entertain. Feature films and documentaries have…
-
Tucker Carlson Is Right. I Hate White People, and Here Are 20 Things I Do to Keep That Hate Alive
Yes, it’s true. Tucker Carlson is right. I hate white people. This secret was revealed earlier this week when Carlson’s show had a segment on “Major Websites Running Bigoted Articles” and chose to spotlight The Root. And in that spotlight, each of the articles he referenced as examples of this hate was an article I…
-
CNN Debuts American Woman Documentary Series … Which Has the Same Name, Theme and Aesthetic as a Series Already Created by a Black Woman
On Wednesday afternoon, I received a text message from creative director and photographer Sarah Huny Young linking me to a new CNN documentary series called American Woman. Created by Brooke Baldwin and displayed as a digital interactive, it features trailblazing women who have “shattered glass ceilings, whether in music, fashion or film,” and includes Ava…
-
I Wanted to Do a Good Deed. I Talked Myself Out of It Because I Thought of All the Ways It Might Get Me Killed
Last night, while heading to drop my daughter off at her mother’s house after her martial arts class, I noticed that the lights on a car in her mother’s neighborhood were blinking on and off. It was fairly windy, so maybe a gust had set off the car alarm, though no sound was coming from…