Table of Contents
I Let Us Now Praise Famous Magical Negroes
I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against a Sharp White Background 3
Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s 5
Everything Will Be Taken Away 6
Magical Negro #3: The Strong Black Woman 8
The High Priestess of Soul's Sunday Morning Visit to the Wall of Respect 10
And Cold Sunset 11
Nancy Meyers and My Dream of Whiteness 12
Whites Only 15
Magical Negro #607: Gladys Knight on the 200th Episode of The Jeffersons 17
Magical Negro #84: The Black Body 20
Sammy Davis Jr. 21
Let's Get Some Better Angels at This Party 22
The History of Black People 24
II Field Negro Field Notes
Two White Girls in the African Braid Shop on Marcy and Fulton 31
"Now More Than Ever" 32
Black Women for Beginners Pt. 1 35
When a Man I Love Jerks Off in My Bed next to Me and Falls Asleep 36
Who Were Frederick Douglass's Cousins, and Other Quotidian Black History Facts That I Wish I Learned in School 38
A Brief History of the Present 40
Ode to Fried Chicken's Guest Appearance on Scandal 43
Magical Negro #1: Jesus Christ 45
Mart 46
"Lilac Wine" by Eartha Kitt vs. "Lilac Wine" Jeff Buckley 49
What I Am 50
If you are over staying woke 52
Who Speaks for the Earth? 55
Black Ego (Original Soundtrack) 57
I Told my Therapist I Tried to Meditate and She Laughed 60
"Parkers Mood" Charlie Parker 61
III Popular Negro Punchlines
Great America 65
Magical Negro #89: Michael Jackson in Blackface on a Date with Tatum O'Neal, 1970s 68
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 70
My Sister Says White Supremacy Is Turning Her Crazy 71
We Are the House That Holds the Table at Which Yes We Will Happily Take a Goddamn Seat 72
Why the Jive Bird Sings 74
Magical Negro #80: Brooklyn 76
The Black Saint & the Sinner Lady & the Dead & the Truth 78
Preface to a Twenty Volume Joke Book 80
Toward a New Theory of Negro Propaganda 85
It was Summer Now and the Colored People Came Out into the Sunshine 90