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An Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly From One of the Slaves Who Built the White House
Dear Bill O’Reilly: Yesterday I was just sitting here playing a game of Monopoly with Thomas Jefferson, Tupac and Harriet Tubman when someone turned on your show. (Yes, we do watch Fox News in heaven. Most comedies are rated R and are filled with cusswords, and we need something to laugh at.) First, I want…
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The Alt-Right Debutante Ball: How a Racist Group Hijacked the GOP and RNC
While black America giggled at the Melania Trump memes all over the internet, a far more troubling situation presented itself at this year’s Republican National Convention. An overlooked contingent has quietly infiltrated America’s two-party system and embedded itself into the mainstream of of the GOP. The 2016 RNC might look like the same old pomp…
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Racism Is Not Hate
I have a cousin named Jerry*. He is 10 years older than I am. He was a virtuoso drummer who you would have been willing to swear had four arms and three feet if you had ever heard him play. He became a prodigy on the piano even though he never owned a keyboard. He…
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The Alton Sterling Footage Is a Terrorist Video
I have not yet seen the video of the Alton Sterling shooting in Baton Rouge, La., because I refuse to watch it. I’m not particularly squeamish or averse to violence; it’s just that I’ve seen the video too many times before. I saw it when the city of Chicago finally released footage of Laquan McDonald’s…
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A Blow-by-Blow Account of the Harris Family’s 2016 4th of July Cookout
Every year we receive so many unbelievable stories, tall tales and arguments about one particular black family’s barbecue. In an effort to dismiss all of these fantastical claims, this year we sent our own reporter undercover to get to the bottom of the facts about the Harris family’s cookout. Although we still haven’t heard from…
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The 10 Greatest Cookout Songs of All Time
The Fourth of July is almost here, and hopefully you’re almost done preparing for your cookout. (Remember, it’s a cookout, not a barbecue. A cookout is an event. Barbecue is a sauce.) There are other people throwing lesser cookouts than yours; they’re online right now researching raisin-walnut chicken-salad recipes, but not you. You know what…
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Stacey Dash and the Psychology of Puppets
There is a little-known technique in some areas of psychology called “puppet therapy,” whereby patients use dolls or puppets to express emotions and points of view that they are uncomfortable saying themselves. The puppet becomes a de facto voice for people to vent their feelings freely and release their true thoughts because, after all ……
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Everything You Wanted to Know About Church Music but Were Afraid to Ask
As we enter a new age in which traditional forms of music have meshed into an indistinguishable mosaic of sound and melody, the purest forms of music have seemingly fallen to the wayside. Everything with conventional notes and instrumentation is now called “jazz.” “Rock ’n’ roll” is now anything with a guitar riff. Any black…
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The Many Complaints of Abigail Fisher
On Thursday the Supreme Court upheld the University of Texas’ affirmative action policies and shot down claims by Abigail Fisher that the policy was unconstitutional. Although Fisher claimed that she was denied entry to the University of Texas because she was white; obviously her spot had been taken by some student of color who was…
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The Top 10 Black TV Fathers of All Time
As we celebrate Father’s Day, the men who shaped our lives deserve much praise and applause. As such, we also want to honor the talented men who shaped our cultural ideal of black fatherhood. We gathered an esteemed panel of tastemakers, experts and women who made a 2 o’clock hair salon appointment but are still…
