1. Puddle water with a severance package

When I finished grad school and got my first job in 2003, the first thing I did was take the first two paychecks I got and put a down payment on a 2003 Honda Accord EX. It was beautiful. She had the black exterior with the caramel-colored seats and wood-grain interior. She drove like the wind.

In the summer of 1993, my family relocated from the major international metropolis of Frankfurt (really Bad Homburg), Germany, to the not-a-major-international-metropolis of Huntsville (really Madison), Ala. My father was in the Army at the time and was stationed at Ft. Campbell, Ky. Since my dad had a year left until…

Although bougie black people have grown to be adaptable to all seasons, summertime is when they’re truly in their element. Between the numerous festivals, fests, day parties, block parties, clam bakes, fish fries, boat rides, and bottomless trap brunches occurring weekly in places BBP congregate, it provides them…

When I moved to D.C. in 2001, I decided to adopt the Washington RacistNames (real name Redskins, or Skins for short) as my NFL team and follow them exclusively. This was a fairly easy decision because short of the Oakland Raiders and mostly because of Bo Jackson, I never had a “team” per se. I was mostly a fan of…

White sneakers are a thing that many people own and occasionally wear. I own two pairs, and I’ve enjoyed the experience of owning and wearing them. I would imagine that other wearers and owners of white sneakers have similar positive thoughts about them. Wearing white sneakers is like drinking grapefruit juice. It…

A few years back, one of my best friends had the opportunity to go back to his home church in D.C. and give a speech during a service. As a son of the church, he was speaking on his journey from his beginnings in southeast Washington, D.C., to, at that point in time, receiving his Ph.D. in psychometrics from Fordham…

Yes, I did.

This article contains major spoilers.

You know how you don’t realize that you want or need something until you find out it exists and then, all of a sudden, it’s something you’ve wanted your whole life? It’s how I feel walking into Target and why I had to stop going. Samesies with Virgil Abloh’s Nike x OFF-WHITE collection, Stance socks and hooded…

On Nov. 2, 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic about the group Queen, but mostly about the Freddie Mercury, hits theaters nationwide. I can’t wait because I’m a fan of the group and Mercury in particular, and I generally love music biopics and biographies. I always look forward to finding out things that I didn’t…

There was a time that white men offered the local community lots of services in exchange for their tax money. They would invent things like the Snickers bar and the shoelace, they wouldn’t exist as things named Tekashi 6ix9ine, and they saved Private Ryan. Residents could borrow any white man they wanted, marry it,…

1. Eat whole bananas

In the ending of “Copper Sun,” the second to last episode of Queen Sugar’s second season, the song “Fall Into My Arms” by Ngaiire plays as Ralph Angel stares at and walks into Blue’s room. Blue is his son; he’s largely raised him alone but with the help of his family, particularly Aunt Vi, but he recently found out at…

If you have spent the slightest amount of time on Black Twitter or Black Instagram since 2015, you have probably come across a tweet or IG post about Ciara.

I don’t know about you, but where I lived in the mid-90s, there weren’t many places for a high schooler to get a job, or so I thought, anyway. Close to me was the world’s most perseverant Hardee’s of all time, McDonald’s, a Bruno’s and a Winn-Dixie, the last two both grocery stores.

On the list of things I’ve always wanted to be in life, placing “ninja” on LinkedIn is definitely high on the list. Of course, that desire ebbs and flows because who the hell ever thinks they’re going to be an actual, real-live ninja? But as it turns out, that shit is legit a real job.

I’m just saying. If they’re going to call the cops on us for setting hard screens, we can easily return the favor.

Updated: Monday, July 17, 2018; 3:53 EDT: When I wrote this piece, I was not aware that, according to court records, Chris Young sexually assaulted a woman in front of her three children at gun point the morning before the murder.

In what I imagine will eventually be a very regretful decision on her part, Angela Rye—noted #BlackGirlMagic trumpeter, public speaker, CNN contributor and women’s empowerment scion—decided to jump out the window in defense of her “brother,” Charlamagne Tha God (CTG).