Great class prof. Harriot. Quick though:

Not excusing behavior but this is also a story about how we don’t process grief very well. Drunk, angry/sad about his son’s death and willing to turn that on strangers. Of course, the fact that he let his racist flag fly is despicable and he should be held accountable for terrorizing people.

Good read. Don’t really follow the WNBA but do know that Taurasi is a beast. And clearly she has that Jordan/Rice/Brady obsessive-compulsive-competition gene that separates the best from the greats.

You don’t what “temper tantrum” means and you don’t know what “awol” means, not a good look.
Also, did you just call the national anthem “entertainment”?
Be scarlet my fair cheeks for ye have blasphemed against all that god made good - my motherland, my country, my flag, my colors that don’t run, my terra upon which…

I traded in my hip hip currency card around the time of the first Pharcyde album. Still enjoy it, but don’t really track it or stay current. I mention that because I only have a passing relationship to Kanye’s music - I know the big hits that found radio play but have never sat down with one of his albums. I don’t…

The wife/mother critique is rooted in patriarchy - meaning because the woman is legally attached to a man and the bearer of his legacy-spawn, the joke is insulting the man by calling her out. The woman who is not in service to a man would, of course, be fair game.
Gross.
Also, if SHS was my wife and the mother of my…

Not so weird. Women have sex with non-communicative silicone tubes all the time. Both genders have sex with their hands on the regular and most of those hands don’t know sign language.
Fantasy is usually part of fucking sex toys. People aren’t turned on by the toy so much as they are by what the toy enables them to do…

I agree that she’s highlighting elements of african american culture that are not in the common purview of white america and I applaud those efforts...and the performances. Stepping/black greek world is not exactly pop culture. Black marching bands, on the other hand, are a bit less of secret...i’m an old white guy…

Not to be salty, but Beyonce IS POPULAR NOW. She’s the queen of pop/r&b. She’s part of a super couple, played the superbowl, and keeps reinventing herself and killing it. The idea that she isn’t widely respected and adored across generations and american cultures just seems laughable. I know she holds a special place…

Chicken gravy is white-ish. And it is delicious. And while we’re on the subject Kitchen Bouquet Browning & Seasoning Sauce is much like Lawry’s - its origin unknown, its make-up mysterious, its arrival in the kitchen under the radar. But it’s job is to brown - because while no gravy is white, no gravy is brown. Gravy…

He was dismissive of people, particularly white men. Clearly favored women, more clearly favored attractive women, and really favored attractive women with big boobs. Used the term “fag-o-rama” in class and was just not kind or interested in teaching.
I had some sympathy for him as he was quite young (early 30s or…

I studied with Junot back in the late ‘90s and this helps explain why he was such an asshole. Masculinity is a complicated cocktail. May he find peace with his pain. And may he stop wielding that pain as a weapon (which he may have already solved...that I can’t speak to).

We have a very ugly, very violent, very cruel history. We also have incredible ideals that we occasionally live up to. The ugliness you’re seeing is classic primate behavior - in-groups fear and loath out-groups - that’s just human behavior, not American behavior. Then again so are the protestors’ actions. An innate…

Generally great piece as ever, Mr. Harriot. You’re saying that we cannot have insight into one another’s lives without experiencing the other’s privilege or oppression? That seems awfully reductive.

Why is everyone upset here? Teammates singing along to a song is somehow hateful? A person concerned that her rather innocuous behavior (again singing along to a song) is being used to publicly shame her and asking that the video be taken down.
Let’s be clear, that is a hateful word when used by hateful people. It has…

These kids have been incredible. Smart, insightful, righteous and very very good at pointing out how fucking stupid the folk in power continue to be.

Honest question: How is the use of “wave” and “dizzying” inherently racist? It seems quite factual to say that the demographics of Hazelton have changed rather dramatically in a relatively short time. Not unprecedented, not dangerous or bad, but dramatic. To use the metaphor “wave” to describe that dramatic change…

I can’t argue the lesson, because it is perfectly ok to shut the fuck when it’s black-people time. But my take away is that when you’re writing about an unprecedented success by black people where they proved they could thrive in a marketplace they’ve been historically blocked from participating in and patronized in…

I bequeath thee an internet point. Rest easy, your work is done.

I’ll go one at a time:
1. You were speaking on a public forum, which is to say you were speaking to anyone who cared to listen. I fall into that category, thus to me.
2. You were also speaking about me, as by all outward appearances, I lack melanin.
3. I don’t think I mentioned your name, Vanessa. Not sure why you…