The macho expectations eating Black men alive and how much the rabid crowd loves it — If you’ve been following Will Smith, you know that this year (and the past few) must’ve been as difficult and as rewarding for him as any. He is a natural spotlight hog and we, the people watching his work for thirty years, have loved him. But he’s never satisfied. Smith’s…

What Netflix’s “Worst Roommate Ever” and A&E’s “60 Days In” tell me about the desperation behind bland, ready-made fame — The Kanye West docuseries Jeen-Yuhs is the best explanation of the jilted megastar’s warped persona and is easily a film of the year. Although its less splashy vintage star is now more myth than icon, the Biggie documentary, I Got a Story to Tell, mines similar turf. In each, the…

The story of Deepti and Shake portrays how racial tensions play out in relationships but skirts an ugly truth — Reality Show (Fool’s) Gold: The Formula On the heels of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” finale, I am torn. …

Rap music is a complex art form with many hidden messages and mantras — In Flatbush, Brooklyn, you had to live by a code. Usually, when people say that, it means you could end up hurt if you violate. But that’s extreme. I think of a code of ethics more like a failsafe when life goes left. I’m not sure whether I was middle…

And other lessons I learned from a Black Tantra feminist group — I was nine years old when I first heard the classic New York greeting “Suck my dick!” screamed into the air. My friend Devin was standing outside of the 1111 Ocean Avenue building steps where we left the babysitter to walk to school. He belted it while holding a nylon…

The body image wars have never been worse — Reality T.V. is a scourge on modern art because it presumes that all we need is stripped-down stories with minor characters braving small struggles. And that’s why I love it. There’s no fiction that rivals how terrible real life has been, especially for the past two years. The genesis of…

Is there good failure? And what does it mean? — I was pretty steady about one thing in 2021: physical activity. Although we still rode waves of a plague into certainty and then uncertainty again, I felt good about going to the park. It was proven safe to go outside and could whip me out of the usual rut. I’m…

A lot of this “working hard to get very little” is fake — This week, I started a series about the many times I’ve gotten fired. For some reason, I thought it would be encouraging to look at the shape and scope of my failures. That’s not the case. Writing about failure is not as clean and inspiring as those Nike Jumpman ads…