What exactly is black crime? — It’s hard to imagine a more polarising cultural moment than the OJ Simpson murder trial. A beloved black celebrity stands accused of murdering his blonde-haired, blue-eyed wife and her “friend.” A hotshot black lawyer steps up to defend him. A racist detective stands as a key witness in front of…

Inside the self-perpetuating outrage machine. — As is often the case with stereotypes, the stereotypes about video games are almost completely wrong. While gaming is often thought of as a male-dominated hobby, 48% of gamers are female. While most people imagine pimply teenagers hunched over their controllers, the average gamer is between 35 and 44 years…

If I want your opinion I’ll give it to you. — Nine years ago, Karl Greenfeld noticed a change in his 13-year-old daughter, Esmee. On weekday evenings, between 8 pm and midnight, she began holing herself up in her bedroom. In the mornings, he found her red-eyed, trudging to school in a state of obvious exhaustion. …

When language and identity collide. — Sometimes you need to be precise. You don’t want coffee, you want a half-double-de-caffeinated-half-caff with a twist of lemon. That’s not blue paint, it’s “Skylight” or “Aegean teal” or maybe “Narragansett green.” It’s not just wine, it’s a 2008 Royal Tokaji Essencia from the Carpathian foothills of northeast Hungary. Every…

Social media’s race to the bottom of the bucket. — I suspect that a lot of strange things can happen if you put enough crabs in a bucket. But as far as I know, only one of them has a name. The “crab-bucket effect" refers to the phenomenon where a consortium of crabs grab hold of any potential escapees and…

No, it’s #notallmen. But sometimes we should pretend it is. — N.B. This article mentions sexual violence frequently enough that I thought I should give readers a heads-up. There are no graphic descriptions of violence, but some men do horrible things and I refer to them (as tangentially as possible) at various points. There’s nothing more frustrating as a writer than…

Equity is a poor imitation of equality. — 183 years ago, Edward Bulwer-Lytton observed that “the pen is mightier than the sword". And the proof of this is that in the three years since Ibram X Kendi published “How To Be An Antiracist”, millions of people have become genuinely uncomfortable saying they’re not racist. Instead, the options have…

Let’s talk about race & IQ. — In 1971, Michael Cole, and a team of his fellow psychologists, travelled to West Africa to settle a question about race and intelligence. They gave members of the Kpelle tribe various items (food, tools, cooking utensils, clothing) and asked them to sort them into categories. …

The days of ”no debate” are at an end. — I wasn’t planning to watch Matt Walsh’s documentary, What is A Woman. Mainly because, and I can’t stress this enough, Matt Walsh is a creep. Matt Walsh thinks the best solution if a father impregnates his 12-year-old daughter, is to force her to keep the baby (this is especially disturbing…