Opinion
-
White People Won't Save You
There are tens of thousands of Americans—nurses and uncles; bus drivers and doctors; aunties and baristas; grad students and my friend—who were killed by COVID-19 because they just weren’t able to escape it. Perhaps their occupation was high-risk. Perhaps they were unable to effectively social distance. Perhaps they had underlying—and white supremacy-induced—medical conditions that made…
-
How To Prepare Steak Exactly How I Like It, Since I Don't Give a Shit If You Like It, Too
There are places on TV, in magazines, and on the internet where you can find peer-and-eater-reviewed methods for preparing, cooking, and staging great steaks. Where the people who make the steaks promise that, if you follow their directions, step-by-step, you will have a delicious steak too. I am not one of those people. This is…
-
Thanks to Terry Crews, I Can Finally Put 'Coon' in a Headline Here!
Although we’re pretty much free to use whichever language we wish within the body of a piece here, headlines are different. Most profanity is fine, in the proper context. But proper context or not, the granddaddy (“fuck”) needs approval from our editor-in-chief. Sexually explicit terms are a no-go, and slurs are, too. Well, mostly. The…
-
Black Women's Trauma Is No Laughing Matter
A few weeks back, chart-topping emcee Megan Thee Stallion revealed via Instagram that she was shot in the foot on July 12 “as a result of a crime committed against [her] and done with the intention to physically harm [her],” despite early reports that she stepped on glass during a night out in the Hollywood…
-
Police Reforms Must Include Reparations for Those Living Through the Trauma of Police Violence
When Eric Garner died after being put in a chokehold by then-New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17, 2014, his daughter Erica Garner immediately became an activist of the highest caliber. She organized marches, wrote articles, and stood up to demand a conversation with President Obama at the presidential town hall on race…
-
Black Leaders, We Need You to Tell the Full Story When Talking About Black Crime—and Black Humanity
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has acceded to the presence of federal police in her city—the same federal officers who have been tear-gassing and beating men, mothers, and Navy veterans in Portland, Ore.—as part of President Trump’s ridiculously and ominously termed “Operation Legend.” The decision from the mayor, the city’s first who is a Black woman,…
-
Why I'm Not Going to Give My Kids 'The Talk'
“So,” the moderator asked, during a public (and socially distant) book talk last week—my first time being indoors anywhere other than my house or a grocery store since early March—“what would you change if you wrote that chapter to your daughter today?” I’ve been asked a variant of that question dozens of times in the…
-
I've Eaten 170,000 Honey Roasted Peanuts Since March
So this morning after eating the 170,000th honey roasted peanut I’ve eaten since March OH IT WAS SO DELICIOUS THE WAY THE HONEY AND THE ROASTED PEANUT CONVERGED IN MY MOUTH CRUNCHY SWEET TANGY SEXY YES SEXY A HONEY ROASTED PEANUT IS THE SEXIEST NUT WAY SEXIER THAN CASHEWS WHICH HAVE NUT SCOLIOSIS AND ALMONDS…
-
The Root's Clapback Mailbag: A Look Inside Our Secret Location
Making our way in the world todayTakes all black people got.Taking a break from wypipoSure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? Sometimes you want to goWhere the Karens can be shamedAnd the cops don’t cock and aimYou want to be where they clap on beatand reparations can be claimed.You want to…
-
Auntie Unfiltered: Ageism Is Bullshit
Happy birthday to me! It’s my 49th birthday today (I know, I know. Hold your applause.), and I couldn’t think of a better occasion to discuss the topic of ageism. Ageism is everywhere. We live in a culture that is obsessed with youth and looking young, as if the natural process of aging—a process that…