In my 32 years being alive, I have never once heard a single White person admit to being racist. But I have heard plenty of White people say the n-word, make fun of Black names, say derogatory things about Black people and Black culture, make light of Black oppression and Black trauma, joke about slavery, and claim Black people aren’t their romantic “type.” There’s a word for all that: racist.
Being racist doesn’t mean you’re a card-carrying member of a White Supremacy organization. It doesn’t mean you hate Black people. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means you are racist.
Being racist means that you see the world through a lens that separates people into racial categories; and ascribes status to Whiteness, and lack of status to Blackness. It means…
Last Thursday, on Earth Day, my social media feeds were flooded with posts imploring me to “go vegan” to save the planet. These posts came from friends, colleagues, and strangers, and were almost uniformly accompanied by filtered photographs of beautiful people in beautiful places. To all these beautiful vegan people: please stop, for so many reasons. It is neither appropriate to tell people what they should or shouldn’t be eating, nor is it factually correct that switching to a 100% plant-based diet is the best solution to the problems facing our planet, not least of all climate change.
I readily…
In Season 9, Denise Richards joined the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with a bang, and by a bang, I mean a happy ending massage. For those of you who don’t watch the show — good for yewww— here’s the backstory:
On a glamping trip, after sipping some tequila, Denise Richards announced that she had arranged for her current husband, Aaron Phypers, to get a happy ending massage. Apparently, he was the only man she had ever been with who had never had one. So she wanted him to have one. They were, as she put it, “on the hunt.”
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Until this past summer, I had never seen the 1993 comedy, Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis, and starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. I know, right? Where have I been, living under a rock?? Not exactly. I was 5 years old when the film came out, and I was living in my parents’ apartment in Manhattan, where we did not have a TV, so entertainment came in the form of reading quietly, arguing less quietly around the dinner table, and the occasional outing to the Metropolitan Opera House. So, yeah. …
Ever since the pandemic hit, I, like so many people, have been cooking a lot at home. As a result, like so many people, I have gotten really freaking sick of washing dishes. I know that I am a happier and healthier person when I grocery shop and prepare my own food, but, all too often, I am lazy and weak, just a primate with an iPhone, and I make bad decisions that serve me neither financially, nor nutritionally. …
The other day, looking at earrings online, I came across a line of cute little studs — a heart, a key, a star, a skull; that sort of thing. They were quirky, but also sort of fancy, and they were priced as “individual earrings.” When I saw those words, something clicked, and I thought, that’s what I am. I’m an individual earring. I’m cute and quirky and there’s one of me and I’m enough.
Earrings sold separately are usually described as “single.” From a marketing perspective, it’s genius. An individual earring sounds like something unique, to be slipped into a…
If Ghislaine Maxwell participated in child sexual abuse, she is guilty of crimes that are malum in se — intrinsically evil. But before we turn on her, fangs bared, and mercilessly tear her limb from limb in retribution for her sins, we would do well to remember that vengeance is not the same thing as justice, and Ghislaine Maxwell is not the Bad Guy in this story.
Jeffrey Epstein was a prolific sexual predator, whose last ignominious act was slithering out of accountability, and robbing his survivors of justice. Did he kill himself? I think he did. …
