Very Smart Brothas
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Does Steve Bannon Have Greyscale? (Asking for a Friend)
Just as discriminating against someone for their race, their ethnicity, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, their age, their disabilities, their health, their perceived intelligence and perhaps even their feelings about kombucha is (rightly) frowned upon, it’s also (usually) not cool to disparage someone for their physical appearance, since it remains (mostly) inflexible and out…
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The Racist Roots of ‘Cuck’ (the White Supremacist’s Favorite Insult), Explained
Sure! Oh, so you don’t think “cuck” is a thing? I wish I were. (Or is it “I wish I was”? I’ve never quite known.) But no, cuck is absolutely, definitely, totally a crucial part of the “alt-right” lexicon. So crucial, in fact, that I take back what I just typed. I’m glad I’m not…
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Body Image and Me: My Struggle With Body Dysmorphia
A few months ago, I reconnected with a dear friend whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. We met up for brunch, laughed about prior fights, squashed beefs and updated each other on our personal lives in between bites of truffle fries. In between convos about the escapades that happened during our distance, I…
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ESPN Televises Slave Auction for NFL Players and Wait, Are We Sure the Confederates Actually Lost?
After watching a clip of an ESPN fantasy football bit where a group of white men “buy” black players from an (also white) auctioneer, I couldn’t help but ask: If this was the idea that received the go-ahead to produce, what the fuck else was on that producers’ meeting whiteboard? A tongue-in-cheek skit where Odell…
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Safaree Might Be the Funnest Coconut Salesman of All Time
When Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood debuted a few seasons ago, I was all in for one reason and one reason only: Willie Ray Norwood Jr., aka Ray J, aka Ray J da Gawd. There are very few celebrities who, in my estimation, provide as much unintentional entertainment as Ray. From playing piano for Floyd…
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White Supremacy Is the Opioid That’s Destroying America
Last week, in a moment of both clumsy acknowledgment of reality and dispatching his charges of office like a dolt, “President” Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for the current opioid crisis in America. And in the typical Trumpian form of a man whose lips probably move when he reads menus, the president thought…
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I’ll Never Criticize Black People’s Belief in Jesus, but Don’t Insist I Believe in Him Too
I think I must have been 9, maybe 10 years old when it finally dawned on me that the doctrine Pastor Bivens was hollering at the assembled black folk from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church didn’t make any damn sense to me. I remember it distinctly because of how uncomfortable I was at…
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On ‘Hella LA,’ Insecure Allows Us to Escape and Reminds Us What We’re Escaping From
A couple of hours before last night’s episode of Insecure aired (or streamed), Natasha Rothwell, the actress who plays Kelli, tweeted a message to fans: It feels weird to ask you to watch @InsecureHBO tonight when the country is on fire, but my hope is that you’ll tune-in and support us because our show dares…
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White People, Ain’t Nothing Funny About White Supremacy, so Now Ain’t the Time for Jokes About It
Black people have always used humor as a way to cope with terror and trauma; I have no issue with us doing the same regarding the rioting in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. But I struggle to understand how white people can set their fingers to type and be tickled alongside us, and decide that…