Opinion
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The Root's Clapback Mailbag: Based on an Almost True Story
Happy New Year! In 2020, we will be doing something different with the mailbag. Don’t worry: the mailbag will still come every Friday. We’ll still answer a selection of emails, tweets, DMs and comments from our readers. We will continue to fuel the mailbag with white tears. But this year, we’re also going to respond…
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An Open Letter to All the Disrespectful Negroes Who Went to Ghana and Ditched Us in Triflin'-Ass America
Firstly, I hate each and every one of you. Secondly, I’m not even sure if “firstly” is a word—it felt awkward in my mouth, like peanut butter on potato chips—but it fits with what I’m saying, so it will be today. But thirdly (and most importantly), why did you do this to us? Of course, “us”…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: Keep That Same Energy, Wypipo
For the last mailbag of 2019, we chose an email, a tweet, a DM and a comment that all ask the same question: Why are we so racist? How can we use the slur “wypipo” while condemning their use of the n-word? How can we make jokes about our Caucasian constituency? Wouldn’t we call them…
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In the Age of Trump…the Future Is Cloudy
In the Age of Trump, you can’t help be pessimistic about the future. There’s something nasty about this new age. A nastiness—even when we kick that cheating bastard out of office—that will cling to us black folks like a sweaty, funky shirt. Trump’s racism, xenophobia, and general stupidity are leaking into the genius of Blackness.…
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Kwanzaa Is Dame Dash to Jay-Z’s Christmas
There was a time back when Kwanzaa and Christmas were cruising on a yacht popping Cristal and truly Big Pimpin’. Then there was a feud, something about Christmas cozying up with Lyor Cohen or Kwanzaa promoting Cam’ron to the president of Holiday Records, and Christmas bounced, went on to marry Beyoncé and partnered with the NFL.…
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Christmas Vs. Kwanzaa: The Tale of the Tape
I was raised in a fundamentalist church that believed in the seventh-day Sabbath, tambourines and neverending, four-nights-a-week services that lasted well into Arsenio Hall’s opening monologue. Apparently, God’s eternal kingdom specifically forbade rap music, brazen women who had premarital sex (if you were a man it wasn’t ok but it didn’t decrease your value) and…
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The Root’s Clapback Mailbag: O Come, All Ye Racists
“The Clapback Song”: Nikes roasting on an open firePete Buttigieg lying through his noseJonas Brothers singing Earth Wing & FireWhite people in plantation wedding photos Everybody knows, that phone call to Ukraine was badAnd what they did to Kaepernick ain’t rightBut white people are spitting madBecause a MAGA jaw got broken in a fight. They…
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For Black People Who Have to Work With MAGAts After Impeachment
Sometimes I take for granted how much God* has blessed me. Every day, I get to work with a group of people who know all the lyrics to Lil’ Kim’s verse in “Quiet Storm” and don’t have to count in their heads when they do the Electric Slide (those are actually the first and second…
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30 Questions for the Way Too Aggressive Card Chip Reader at Target Last Night
1. When I was done making my purchase yesterday—a Wilton Icing Writing Black Pen and three Sterilite Clearview Latch Boxes with purple latches—was it really necessary to say “Remove your card … NOW?” 2. Don’t you know that putting “NOW” in there was overkill? 3. And also rude as fuck? 4. What happened to “Remove…