I'm not sure if it's an age-old question for everyone, but it definitely is for me. I'm black, educated and rather liberal, so I acknowledge that I might read things on a deeper level than they were intended. But other times, folks are just dead wrong.     When I was helping my buddy in his doughut shop back in April and we'd have a particularly busy day, it wasn't uncommon for a customer-- a complete stranger, sometimes white, often black -- to advise us to go up to Home Depot and "pick up a Mexican" to help us out… Read More

  Ta-Nehisi Coates has a touching feature at The Atlantic today on Michelle Obama.  So far, I've read it twice. Once to dissect its form so I can use it to up my own writing game, and a second time to grasp what he's saying. Oftentimes when I read features by black writers on the Obamas and their American identities, I get the… Read More

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about the increase of the homicide rate among black teens.  I've mentioned before how I hate stories like these. I always feel like the media uses them to remind everyone to be very afraid of the big black bogeyman. Now it seems the Times' very on freakonomics blogger is debunking the story, or at least claiming it's devious.     Steve Levitt took a more accurate approach to the homicide report, unlike the… Read More

Whenever I read stuff  like this over at Ta-Nehesi I feel like falling back because I wonder if I can ever be so good.  Insecurity is a word that rhymes with snitch but it too shall pass.  I've been following dude for a short time now, but he writes so well, and links to writers that are equally as talented, that it all makes me feel a little less crazy for trying to make a living perfecting an art form that's being infiltrated… Read More

I was really having a shitty morning till I saw this over at Ta-Nehisi Coates. Reporter Spencer Ackerman spit mad fire on this Blago theme song he created to the "Dey Know" beat. The wiretaps, Blago's foul mouth, Blago still doing work like "f*uck what a hater say," - it really is hip-hop.  And this is even more hilarious to me  because of the second verse by Ackerman's reporter friend "Vitamin." At the end "Vitamin"… Read More

Ta-Nehisi Coates brings up an interesting point regarding Huckabee and John Stewart's dueling viewpoints on gay marriage last night.  

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