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  • When You're Black and in America, Even Victories Sometimes Feel Like Defeats

    There was a moment — a few moments, actually — directly following Barack Obama’s win in 2008 when I think I felt how it feels to be a white American. I’ve never actually been white, so this thought is based on a generous presumption. But when I think of whiteness in a micro context and…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • Why I Hate Biopics

    So the title is a lie. Any list of my all-time favorite movies would include both Goodfellas and Malcolm X in it—both of which are biopics—and there many others that I’ve enjoyed watching. So, as a rule, I do not actually hate watching movies that are based on a real person’s life and the events…

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    Damon Young

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  • Terence Nance's WhitePeopleWontSaveYou.org and the Never-Ending Loop of White Saviors on Screen

    You know that feeling when you drink a drink that you (frequently) drank as a young adult—Hpnotiq, perhaps (or maybe even the Incredible Hulk)—and you’re shocked and horrified (and impressed) by how terrible it tastes to you now? Well, that was me Sunday afternoon, after browsing channels and somehow landing on The Blind Side. Which,…

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    Damon Young

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  • White People Just Keep White Peopleing

    It would be wildly disingenuous to claim that I was disappointed in The New Yorker editor David Remnick’s decision to feature sentient barrow of racist cat jizz Steve Bannon at The New Yorker’s fall festival. Because that would mean I still possess the capacity to be disappointed by white people, and I do not. I…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • The 10 Best, Blackest, Messiest and Ugliest Moments From Aretha Franklin's Epic Marathon Homegoing

    1. At 3:30 p.m. Friday afternoon—a time which was already 30 minutes past the very optimistic target ending time on the agenda for Aretha Franklin’s homegoing—my wife and I left the house during Rev. Jesse Jackson’s speech to buy a mattress for a bed delivered to us the day before. When we returned two whole-ass…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • Yeah, This Might Be Jason Whitlock’s Worst and Saddest Take Ever

    Sentient pile of repurposed lamp-heated rotisserie pork rinds Jason Whitlock has descended so far into the abyss of oafish takes and porkpie hats that my feelings about him have shifted from annoyance to contempt to where they exist now, which is pity. The things he says about race and culture—on Twitter and on his show—aren’t…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • Donald Trump Does Not Want That Smoke From Andrew Gillum

    Admittedly, I do not know much about Andrew Gillum. I know he won the Democratic nomination in Florida’s primary race for governor, beating heavy favorite Gwen Graham. I know he’s the mayor of Tallahassee. I know he graduated from Florida A&M—which is why every FAMU grad I’m Facebook friends with had 22,000 word-long status messages…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • John McCain Was a White American Hero

    John McCain was a white American man, whose whiteness and Americanness and maleness were his most prominent and predictable characteristics. He was also considered to be a hero. Barack Obama spoke on McCain’s “courage to put the greater good above our own.” Joe Biden remarked that McCain’s life was “proof that some truths are timeless.”…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • Why You Just Can’t Trust a Man With Weak Dap, Explained

    My answer depends on who asks. If a white person asks, I’d perhaps say something like “It’s a catchall to describe what often happens when black males greet each other with myriad intimate (and sometimes complex) variations of the standard handshake. Also, some members of the Latino community are familiar with and partake in this…

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    Damon Young

    Published

  • 10 Probably Not All That Interesting Reasons Why I Got the Title of My Book Tattooed on My Arm

    Hello. My name is Damon Young. My debut memoir, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, is available for preorder. If you haven’t already, go ahead and preorder a few. I am, as you can imagine, excited about this. (Terrified too, for reasons I might share here at some point between now and March, but…

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    Damon Young

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Damon Young