Writing I’ve published in other media outlets
The Oscars played in Angela Bassett’s face again, and in the wake of that disappointing moment, all white media can talk about is how she didn’t smile and clap for Jamie Lee Curtis, a Hollywood nepo baby, who won for what essentially amounted to a cameo in this year’s biggest winning movie.
Continue reading
Elgin Charles low key clowned my braids last night, and I ain’t even mad at him for it.
Continue reading
Ben Stein is racist.
Stella Parton is racist.
Scott Adams is racist.
Continue readingRacism is a part of daily life in America, whether it is as overt as people marching around in Klan uniforms or as subtle as someone making passive-aggressive negative comments about Black people in our presence.
As much as we want to give most white people the benefit of the doubt, there usually comes a time when even our faves (or their siblings) disappoint us by saying something so outlandishly racist itās hard to ignore.
I had a recent experience on Facebook with a former co-worker who I always thought was just a nice older white lady. She showed up in the comments of one of my posts and completely showed her ass, and she doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on her ignorance even when she was called out by her fellow white people.
Here is a list of white people I was extremely disappointed to find out were (undercover) racists
Since the 2009 incident in which he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna ā an incident to which he pleaded guilty and received a felony conviction ā Brown has remained an unapologetic jerk on all fronts. Last month, People magazine published a timeline of all his legal troubles since the 2009 conviction, and the list is long and full of examples of Brown being unable to control his temper and keep his hands to himself.
The 33-year-old is obviously very troubled and would likely benefit from long-term professional help, but what is not helping is all the people enabling him ā most especially Black women.
Chris Brown is problematic, and itās time for Black women to stop uplifting him
How is Pearson wearing a dashiki disrespecting anyone? Is it not disrespectful for Hawk to be offended by it? Would he have the same attitude if an East Indian woman wore a sari or a Japanese woman wore a kimono? Would he be offended by a Sikh wearing his turban?
Just where do we draw the line? Why is it acceptable for people of other cultures to acknowledge said cultures by wearing their traditional dress, but when a Black person does it, itās suddenly āunprofessionalā?
How professionalism standards and dress code policies support white supremacy
For theGrio, I wrote about how professionalism standards and dress codes help to uphold white supremacy. Both are almost always targeted specifically at Black people.
Today is Megan Thee Stallion’s 28th birthday.
She should be out celebrating and driving the boat, doing hoodrat shit with her ratchet friends, but instead she has been on a self-imposed hiatus, disappearing from the public eye immediately after Tory Lanez was convicted in December for the July 2020 incident in which he shot her in her feet.
Megan deserves so much better.
For theGrio, I wrote an open letter to her.
I hope wherever she is right now, she is surrounded by love, finding peace, feeling protected, and healing herself mentally and emotionally so she can come back stronger than ever. We miss her.
For theGrio, I wrote about y’all being entirely too goofy over the pictures of Erykah Badu and her oldest daughter, Puma.
I noticed two very specific types of reactions to these photos. First there were the “Oh my god! I would never” people, and to them I say, “Well, don’t then, bitch.”
Then I noticed all the grown men making nasty comments and posting rapey memes with captions expressing what they would like to do to an 18-year-old. Y’all need to be on a registry somewhere.
It’s OK for us to celebrate Erykah and Puma being empowered to show off their bodies. I want all Black women to feel this free.
What’s NOT OK is making sexual comments about an 18-year-old just because “she’s legal.” Go sit your overgrown ass in a corner somewhere and figure out why you are sexualizing someone that young.
Because to be clear, neither Erykah nor her daughter sexualized themselves in those pictures. Y’ALL sexualized them with your responses to them.
Anyway, read “Age of consent doesnāt give you permission to be a creep.”
Let’s keep it real: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is still under the same microscope it has been under for the last two years as it continues to fight its way out of the negative press it received for not having any Black members.
NBC decided not to air the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in 2022 because of the fact HFPA was embroiled in so much scandal. It was a mess.
As most organizations do when they get called for blatant racism or a lack of diversity, HFPA has been bending over backwards to try and make amends, including adding six new Black members to their ranks and ensuring that more Black actors and projects were nominated for this year’s awards.
They didn’t stop there, though.
Continue reading
My favorite nights on Twitter are the nights when some movie or program is on television and Black Twitter watches it as a family, providing commentary all the way through.
We have done this with Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and a lot of other television shows and made-for-tv movies.
We did it again this Tuesday when the Golden Globe Awards aired on NBC for the first time in two years.
Continue reading
I have made no secret of how much I detest Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, and Jeff Van Gundy.
When Jeff Van Gundy is one of the announcers during a basketball game, I remind everyone of how much I don’t like him.
In a former iteration of my life, I was one of those people who made new year’s resolutions that never made it past January.
The problem, I discovered, was that while the resolutions may have been worthwhile, without specifically defining them and giving them deadlines, they simply became things I wished I could do or dreamed of doing. I needed a better plan.
Read “Why I started setting goals instead of making resolutions every new year.”
I wrote my very first piece for The Verge, and I am super excited because it’s about something near and dear to my heart: personal blogging.
I have had a blog or online journal in some form since the late 90s. I started on Geocities, migrated to Blogger, taught myself to configure Greymatter, Movable Type, and WordPress, and I used all the other sites like Typepad, livejournal, tumblr, Vox (before it became the site it is now, it was a blogging platform similar to what tumblr is now)) and everything in between.
The point is, I’m not new to this; I’m true to this.
Continue reading
Megan Thee Stallion has been treated like the villain ever since news broke that she was shot by Canadian rapper Tory Lanez. She has been the victim of targeted harassment, weaponized misinformation and general misogyny and misognynoir.
I discuss this in my latest for theGrio, “Before, during and after the trial of Tory Lanez, Megan Thee Stallion was treated as more of a villain than he was. Letās talk about it.”
Pete was subjected to a targeted campaign of weaponized misinformation and had her name dragged through the mud day after day. In her testimony during the trial, she tearfully related how this entire situation has impacted her life and made things harder for her, saying at one point, āBecause I was shot, Iāve been turned into some kind of villain, and heās the victim. This has messed up my whole life.
āI wish he would have just shot and killed me (rather than) have to go through this torture,ā she said.
Black women are unprotected, and in the hip-hop community, many will rush to defend a man for his actions before they will protect the woman his abusive actions harm. It’s sickening.
Read the article, and let me know what you think.
Why don’t Black children get the same benefit of the doubt that white children receive? Why are Black children adultified while white children are infantilized? Why are people so quick to take action when the offender is a Black child, but less likely to move to action when the harm is being caused by a white child?
These are just some of the questions I am looking for answers to in my latest piece for theGrio, Black children are not safe in a world ruled by white supremacy.
In this piece, I discuss the examples of Bobbi Wilson, the 9-year-old girl who had the police called on her by a neighbor who knew her because she was spraying a homemade concoction on trees to stop the infestation of an insect that is harmful to the trees.
Continue readingHello, friends, non friends, and people I don’t fuck with!
If you are here, it’s because you are already a longtime fan of my writing, or you read something I wrote, or you follow me on social media, or you are some weirdo who read something I wrote that upset you, and now you are here to try and put me in my place in the comment section (alas, trolls: i moderate comments like a mutha fucka).
Whichever category you fall into, it’s obvious you cannot get enough of me, so I wanted to offer you the opportunity to sign up for free content on my newsletter, “off the record.”
“off the record” is part memoir, part cultural commentary, part news and informationāhonestly, think of it as a longer version of my Twitter timeline. I talk about everything. This will be the same.
Go ahead and subscribe for the free content. I dare you.
A recording and transcript of the speech Jones delivered were published online yesterday. Regardless of where you stand on what exactly he was apologizing for, the entire thing reeks of both-sideism. Jones discredits activism in the Black community, throws Black people under the bus in favor of trying to score points with white people and blames us for Kanye West. In short, this mess stinks, but let me go point-by-point and explain why.Ā
Op-Ed: Van Jones Needs To Be Held Accountable For His Anti-Black Comments
For NewsOne, I shared my thoughts on Van Jones and his apology to the Jewish community on behalf of Black people.
read more after the jump
Continue reading
To be clear, Twitter was already on life support, but Captain Apartheid swooped in and started unplugging all the machinery, and now the site is wheezing for help and pushing the nurse call button, but no one is responding.Ā
What we lost in the fire: Elon Musk is slowly killing the things that made Twitter a force for good
āWendell Pierce is a Black man who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, with parents who stressed education ā understanding that your first wealth is health, and soon thereafter is education,ā the actor, who recently became the first Black man to play the lead in Arthur MillerāsĀ Death of a SalesmanĀ on Broadway, told Andscape.
How āDeath of a Salesmanā helped Wendell Pierce become fearless
Y’all. I had the extreme pleasure of interviewing actor Wendell Pierce to discuss his role playing Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Pierce is the first Black actor to play the role on Broadway.
Wendell Pierce is one of my favorite actors. I stan. I was so excited to do this interview, and he did not disappoint. (read more after the jump)
Continue reading
āIām pretty pissed off,ā Smith said. āIām pissed off but not for reasons people think. I am very, very fond of Jerry Jones, and Iām not hiding that from anybody. Is his record perfect? No, but Iām pissed off because he doesnāt deserve what just happened. He doesnāt deserve it. One report, our report, said he was 14 years old. Another report said he was 15 years old. At minimum thatās 65 years ago.ā
Stephen A. Smith defending Jerry Jones is egregious, and hereās why
The Washington Post published an article about Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones last week. The article included a photo taken in September 1957 when six Black teens attempted to integrate the racially-segregated North Little Rock High School. They were met by an angry white mob at the front door of the school.
Jerry Jones, who was 14 at the time, is pictured in the photo standing in the crowd. When the photo came out, he rightfully received public backlash
ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith put on his Jason Whitlock costume and rushed to the defense of Jones, who he says is the victim of an attempt at “cancel culture” for something he did when he was a kid.
If only Stephen A understood that it’s a lot more nuanced than that.
My latest for theGrio.
The job ahead of her is not an easy one, but I am fully confident that she will be able to handle it because letās face it, if you want something done, you really just have to get a Black woman to do it.Ā
Congratulations, Karen Bass. You Deserve.Ā
Rick Caruso thought he was going to be able to buy his way into becoming the Mayor of Los Angeles, but it did not work out the way he thought. After spending more than $100 million of his own money and outspending Karen bass 11 to 1, he lost, and Los Angeles has it’s first woman, first Black woman, and only the second Black person in history to be mayor.
She deserves. My latest at theGrio.
Listen, I get it. You are a white woman of color who was born and raised in Canada. You are an actor who got your start on the Canadian show āDegrassi,ā and you are now in the midst of playing your biggest role, that of a rapper named Drake.
Dear Drake, please leave Megan Thee Stallion and every other Black woman out of your mouth
For theGrio, I addressed Drake and his messy bitch behavior. In case you are unaware, on his recent release with 21 Savage, he decided to go after Megan Thee Stallion unprovoked, and I don’t like that.
Kyrie Irving definitely should have apologized for posting the link, but it should have ended there. If you are not going to hold the hosts of the material accountable, how are you going to find multiple ways to punish the consumer for taking it in?Ā
Kyrie Irving has gotten all the smoke, but why arenāt Jeff Bezos and Amazon being held accountable?
For theGrio, I share my thoughts on the sanctions the Nets have put on Kyrie Irving and question why Jeff Bezos isn’t receiving the same amount of scrutiny for hosting the infamous antisemitic video that Irving has received for posting it to his Twitter account.
Most people who have watched the show have expressed their disgust and horror at what is depicted. They have often said how horrible it would be if something like this happened in real life. You can tell the people who said that werenāt Black, because Black people know (or should know, anyway) that the exact things being depicted in āThe Handmaidās Taleā actually happened to enslaved Black women in this country.
Serena Joy of āThe Handmaidās Taleā is the epitome of white people who donāt care until it happens to them
For theGrio, I wrote about how Serena Joy Wateford on The Handmaid’s Tale is very much like white women (and white people in general) in this country who only care about an issue when it directly impacts them.
Once my focus was taken off turning myself into āwife material,ā I was able to devote that energy to improving and evolving me for me. Regular talks with my therapist, a lot of self-critique-turned-into-active improvements and consistently listening to myself helped me to improve my relationship with myself as well as others around me.Ā
My life changed for the better once I decentered romance
For theGrio, I discuss how my life changed once I de-centered romance.
The one part of Halloween that I donāt enjoy, however, is the predictable parade of white people doing inappropriate things and wearing inappropriate costumes. It seems like no matter how much we call them out for it and explain why it is inappropriate, they keep doing it anyway, year after year.Ā
A list of 5 things I am begging white people not to do this Halloween season
The other issue is the way Silverman came at Peete. Nowhere in Silvermanās timeline is there a tweet showing her directly addressing anyone else about their presumed silence on the issue of Kanyeās anti-semitic statements. Yet she felt totally emboldened to go after a Black woman.Ā
Sarah Silverman went after Holly Robinson Peete on Twitter, and itās not OK
Let me just pause right here to say that Black people bring the spice everywhere we go. We add that little bit of razzle dazzle that is needed to level up any type of event or gathering.Ā
Black Twitter makes everything better
Continue readingThe Cardinal Divas are a majorette dance squad similar in nature to those mostly seen on the campuses of our nationās HBCUs. Part spirit squad, part dance troupe, and always killing the game, these dance squads do something known as āj-setting,ā a style of dance popularized by the squad at Jackson State University. Unlike white majorettes, Black majorettes do away with the traditional batons in favor of high kicks and mind-blowing choreography that can be done sitting in the stands as well as on the field.
Why are so many Black people bothered by the new Black majorette squad at USC?Ā
You see, those on the right have been engaged in a game of wordplay that has them redefining words and phrases to fit their various propaganda campaigns. Three very loud examples that come to mind are the word āwokeā and the phrases ācritical race theoryā and āquiet quitting.ā Stick with me and Iāll explain to you what I mean.
Word games and propaganda campaigns: The right is weaponizing language against us
As a Black woman, Anya was supposed to keep her thoughts to herself. This is how white supremacy works. You are supposed to endure the abuse and keep silent about it. Even raising the issue makes you a bigger problem than the issue itself. RememberĀ selective offense?Ā
Carnegie Mellonās response to Professor Uju Anyaās tweet is an example of how institutions uphold white supremacy