Finally, the story I've always wanted to write: For , I investigated Italian-American screen icons and their half century-long Black American fandom through the fallacy of the American Dream, the spectrum of whiteness, and masculinity:
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Morgan Jerkins
@MorganJerkins
New York Times bestselling author | CWR faculty. | Two-time National Magazine Award-winning journalist and editor | Filmmaker
Morgan Jerkins’s posts
If an older Black woman asks if you’re pregnant, you better run to CVS, girl.
If it ain’t now, soon.
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I’m still laughing because this was so unhinged lmao #theview
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Principal: Please hold the applause until we get through every name.
Black parents at the graduation:
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When Mariah Carey sued that billionaire boyfriend she had for wasting her time and won a multi-million dollar settlement, that's girl math.
Someone recently wrote that a sign of gentrification is the lack of sound and I’m about to fall down another rabbit hole of the colonialist history of noise and volume from Black people.
There is a viral tweet going around that shows Judy Garland in blackface next to a still of her in "The Wizard of Oz" and it's like, what is this supposed to prove?
She was a drugged up, abused child actor who later became a civil rights advocate.
This info isn't hard to find.
Instead of making fun of Marie Kondo for having a less-than-tidy home now with three kids, you could see her vulnerability as another affirmation that life be life-ing sometimes and we don't stay the same in thoughts or rhythm.
If I say "go to CVS, girl," that means to go and get a pregnancy test. Since when do they do abortions at the convenience store?
And this is why I always say to stay outta women business because look at this foolishness right here.
Come on and look at it.
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You women are disgusting and homicidal. Why are y’all so casual about murdering children? Like why is that the first thing you think of? twitter.com/MorganJerkins/…
One of my favorite things about Marilyn Monroe: her support and admiration for Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn helped in getting Ella booked at bigger venues like the Mocambo in Los Angeles, and made sure she was being treated well.
Usher said y'all ain't gettin' no Verzuz, you gettin' a TINY DESK.
Because, look at the material...
Airbnb is collapsing and that's great news.
We back in hotels. Plush robes and slippers, baby.
No extra cleaning fees, baby.
We getting homes, baby.
Time to heal!!!
- Everyone should be housed.
- Landlords who turn closets into bedrooms should be heavily fined.
- Rental units <650 sq ft should not be worth more than a certain amount in rent
- Every unit should have A/C and heat. If not, rent should be significantly reduced.
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what is your most radical housing opinion?
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Growing up, we used to joke that Black people could make a beat out of anything: cookware, a lunch table, our hands and knees
Was that ingenuity born out of the oppression from the Black codes of America and the slave codes in the Caribbean?
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Oh it was the Stono Rebellion of 1739 that did it. Rebels used drums to communicate.
Drums are a powerful instrument in the diaspora.
They not only can signal a rebellion but they can also catalyze the Holy Ghost and call the ancestors or spirits forward into a space.
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I can’t stop looking at the boots. That’s a bad bitch right there.
I would buy a coffee table book of Busta Rhymes or Missy Elliott's visuals with tons of commentary and background on their influences.
Oh my God, I just learned at 30 years old that "knowing someone biblically" means that you had sex with someone.
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This forced outrage also reminds me of when someone made a mention of Jane Fonda being a white woman as if she wasn't a civil rights activist whose work with the Black Panthers alone is well documented.
Again, this literature isn't hard to find.
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If you are a thirteen year old on barbiturates, who is being taken advantage of by almost everyone who is supposed to protect you, what then? How do you think that affects decision making?
Have some compassion.
Darling. The great Paul Mooney once said, "The only thing a white woman could do for Robert De Niro is show him where the Black women at."
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Robert De Niro has Black kids?!
If you don't believe Jonah Hill and Lauren London could ever be a couple, come to New York and I'll show you how you're wrong.
So much of the discourse about EEAAO being reductive because it focuses on the importance of being kind and good in the spite of it all reminds me of when I went to a Black alumni conference at Princeton back in 2015 and Toni Morrison was there… 🧵
There is a reason why SZA has a song called "Drew Barrymore" and Drew appears in the video.
There is something about this woman's resilience that spans across generations. She is "out there", a member of an elite acting dynasty, yet so accessible.
Love her.
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I want to love anything as much as Drew Barrymore loves everything. Perfection.
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It’s not reductive or low brow to love a good message. It doesn’t make one smarter to be drawn to pain and misery.
And if goodness makes one childish, hey, maybe connecting with our inner child selves should happen. At least as kids we were more curious and less rigid.
I just learned of this video existing and now I can’t stop thinking about it.
So pure. So delightful.
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Let’s be clear. Anyone who was raised in the 70s and early mid 80s are tougher than any of us will ever be.
Why? Because they survived The Neverending Story.
And I, for one, applaud you.
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She was being interviewed on stage and she said that evil doesn’t interest her as much as goodness. Goodness is what has made her think more deeply and critically because evil can be done quite easily.
Ursula Le Guin echoes this too. Evil can be banal. What is wrong with good?
After watching "The Woman King" (and loving it), the internet campaign intended to derail its success because of the Dahomey Kingdom's involvement in slavery looks even more ridiculous, and, might I add, dangerous.
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I’ve been thinking about that Morrison talk for years esp now with people insulting others for being moved by EEAAO.
People want goodness. They want to believe and hope. That should inspire and shake up our intellectual sensibilities even if we didn’t like it ourselves.
No matter what station I am in life or how much money I plan to make, I will never be too good for Cheesecake Factory.
Pass me the Bible menu and the brown bread.
✨ I can finally let the cat out of the bag. ✨
I'm going to be a lecturer in 's creative writing department for the 2023-2024 academic year.
I'm so excited and thankful and honored that I don't know what to do with myself.
I hope everyone involved is okay.
I ain't saying nothing else but I'm staring. You staring back? You thinking what I'm thinking?
Ok.
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Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and her mother were involved in a "near catastrophic" car chase after being followed by paparazzi, according to his spokesperson.
news.sky.com/story/prince-h
Orcas to one another:
Until there is an official report from the family, do not believe anything you read about Jamie Foxx. Just continue to lift him up.
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Another thing I loved about Marilyn Monroe: she had a personal library of over 400 books.
Notable works:
"An Anthology of American Negro Literature"
"Invisible Man"
Khalil Gibran
Dostoevsky
Plays by Molière
this is a top tier New York accent right here
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every week somewhere is flooding
every week some place is on fire
Black women, pay attention.
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Tina Turner, showing off her estate in southern France to Mike Wallace.
MIKE WALLACE: You feel like you deserve all this?
TINA TURNER: I deserve more.
#RIP
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I turn 30 today. Will be accepting good vibes, encouragement, and advice as I walk into this new era 😇
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I was like, "Cedars Sinai, girl!" It's a well known hospital!
Well...
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issey miyake was black and the government tryna cover it up!
I don't know how to explain this--and I hope I'm not alone--but these stories about gun-related murders are making me more and more afraid to leave my home.
It's not paralyzing but I feel it in my chest every time I put on my jacket.
I took this picture a few weeks ago and I legitimately think this is one of the best looks I’ve ever had.
Also would like to add that other Black performers, like Dorothy Dandridge, performed at the Mocambo.
But owners thought Ella being both Black and not skinny would diminish the glamour of the venue.
Marilyn put a stop to that.
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One of my favorite things about Marilyn Monroe: her support and admiration for Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn helped in getting Ella booked at bigger venues like the Mocambo in Los Angeles, and made sure she was being treated well.
If I ever see Colin Farrell in public, I’m going for it. Don’t care of the possibility of being turned down. I must try.
Some professional news: I'm starting my own newsletter called Lorain, in honor of Toni Morrison's birthplace.
I will go more into the details of what this new space will offer in this thread but first, here are the reasons why I'm going down this new path 🧵 :
The Smithsonian NMAAHC has a new digital curator, the first of its kind, and her name is Dorothy Berry ().
We talked about her trajectory, the future of Black archives in institutions and social media, and how to make archives more humane.
morganjerkins.substack.com/p/dorothy-berr
If you live in New York, you need to go to Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem to see an Afro futurist reinterpretation of “Twelfth Night.”
It is so good. So, so good.
AND! It’s free!!
Free.
Don’t wait.
There is a whole lot happening with systems of power all over the world and I hope everyone is watching.
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Unprecedented scenes in Iran: woman sits on top of utility box and cuts her hair in main square in Kerman to protest death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. People clap their hands and chant “Death to the dictator.”
#مهسا_امینی
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This is why she’s been beloved for four decades.
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I wrote about Queen Elizabeth II's passing, how Black, Brown and Irish communities processed her legacy, and what white people get wrong about who gets respect online: morganjerkins.substack.com/p/the-internet
Stop staying together for the kids. They know you're miserable. They're probably miserable watching you be miserable. Stop the misery and start the papers.
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Martha Stewart just posted this on IG and I've never felt like so much of a failure
the quiet part loud, chile
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Student loan forgiveness undermines one of our military’s greatest recruitment tools at a time of dangerously low enlistments.
Boycotting the south is not the way and will never be the way.
How can you expect to help when you're neglecting the people who will be most impacted by these draconian policies?
During the Haitian Revolution, the plantation fires were so large and widespread that a person could go out on their balcony in the middle of the night, open the paper, and be able to read it.
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Basically everyone has a “John Lennon beat his wife” style fact that they cant stop themselves from sharing if anything even tangentially related comes up in conversation
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You want complex stories of the diaspora yet salivate to destroy all endeavors to do that. History is complicated, and learning history will make you uncomfortable at times.
No one is here to infantilize you with sanitized portraits of people. They are artists. Not your mother.
I’m tired of grieving Black men who deserve to be earth side with us for many more decades.
Black men deserve to live well into old age.
There's something about women celebrities, from Jennifer Coolidge to Leslie Jones, those in their 50s and 60s, telling us it ain't over till we're dead that's extremely helpful.
I don't know if it's a culture shift but it's a shift for me. Personally.
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idk about y’all but i truly needed to hear this message from leslie jones
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This is why I can’t wait for Airbnb to crash and burn.
Just go stay at the Mandarin Oriental for this kind of price. twitter.com/BrendanLLM/sta
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I’m not going to CVS for toiletries anymore. Everything is locked up. You can’t even get deodorant without having to call an employee to assist you.
I wrote about the racist backlash to “The Little Mermaid,” Eurocentric imaginations, and what Black ancestral knowledge really grasps about what lives under the sea: morganjerkins.substack.com/p/the-black-wo
Let me tell you something, if you a billionaire with an alleged side baby, you gotta pay me more than $30,000 to shut up.
I better have a permanent residence in the Carlyle, all my future kids' colleges paid off, and three Afghan hounds before you even walk out that door.
And this is why they’re collapsing 😋
If I can't watch Don Lemon get drunk live during NYE, then there really is no point in staying up late.
Umm I just returned home and saw this tall thing shooting up on my plant. That was not there before.
What is happening.
It really is underrated to be in a hotel room in a city that you've never seen before and just do...nothing.
His family’s behavior is exactly why that man grew up to be the way that he is.
Hi yes I look very hot on my birthday after spending all day moving into my new home please clap
How often are Black writers asked to profile non-Black public figures?
I can count on one hand how many times I've been asked and still have a few fingers left over.
I keep telling friends and fam by how bad it is in NYC and to read Bridget’s writing to see how out of control the market is. twitter.com/bridgetgillard
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I don't get what the end goal is. You want diversity yet turn up your nose at the contours of what REAL diverse stories entail.
You already know how hard it is to get a Black female-centered film made.
The motives are simply nasty, and I'm not going to be convinced otherwise.
It blows my mind when people in the comments and QTs get mad at protestors for being disruptive.
What do you think a protest is, saying "please" and "thank you" while handing out dandelions? twitter.com/RebsBrannon/st
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I won’t say “Happy Juneteenth” because it feels weird.
So I’ll say, I thank the ancestors for all that they were, and I thank all of you descendants to be here in this moment in time despite efforts to annihilate us.
Thank you for you. Thank them for all of us. 🕯🧿
I don't know how much clearer someone has to be in showing that they don't want to be around you.
., a disability rights and inclusion activist, and , a queer biophysicist and author, talk about how the government has failed us in its handling of COVID and monkeypox.
I’m telling y’all, they went off 🔥 morganjerkins.substack.com/p/a-crisis-of-
It’s almost like Black people have been trying to warn people of this for years and we were deemed as not understanding their “cool” and “subversiveness”
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The dirtbag left/anti-woke left to fascist pipeline is so fast that it is practically a waterslide.
Because those same men expected Ciara to be heartbroken, dejected, and single after what happened with Future.
So to see another man, who’s richer, attractive, and more decent, love her well, it jams them up.
So in short: They hate him for loving a Black woman.
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Can anyone explain to me why so many men have an issue with Russell Wilson? I’m confused
I’m in Atlanta right now celebrating one of my best friends for her bachelorette party weekend.
I’m her maid of honor, which is really an honor.
I’ve had a great deal of mimosa but I feel very pretty and happy.
The orcas done got to em. I know organizing when I see it.
It actually rained.
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What’s the best photograph in music history ?
I’m crying.
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Shane Hawkins, the 16 year old son of the late Taylor Hawkins playing the drums during “My Hero” with the Foo Fighters during the tribute show to his dad, has me 
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Couldn't have said it any better myself.
he’s lying, your honor
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Shaquille O'Neal sells his Auntie Anne’s pretzel franchises, says “Black people don’t like pretzels that much”
bet.com/article/pixue4
I am feeling jealous of all the male writers of past and present who got wives to handle everything while they worked on big projects.
Because I am knee deep in work, I would love a hearty stew or chicken paillard, and who's gonna cook it? 'Cause it ain't me.
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Because they’re bored. And probably jealous of her success.
I’ve been writing professionally for almost a decade but the love I received for my Vanity Fair article sure was something.
I’ve been on a natural high since it dropped.
Thank you 💕
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Researching ethnic groups' migratory patterns is my jam. But when speaking to scholars about how and when Italian immigrants and African-Americans intersected with the labor force, particularly in the south, it blew my mind:
As a billionaire, why are you tweeting at us like this?
The Maldives is right there. Seychelles is right there.
Go and be rich.
I definitely said a prayer, and I know I wasn't the only Black woman either.
Whew, God.
Where the tambourine at
Tonight I told an older Black woman that it’s good to see her and she replied, “Good to be seen.”
I never heard that response.
I love it.
I’m gonna use it.
I would’ve folded like a beach chair
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Replying to @tressiemcphd
I still have not recovered from this and I doubt Robin has either. 
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I had the pleasure of meeting Christian Cooper in Central Park bright and early for a memorable conversation and birding lesson.
My profile for : Christian Cooper, birding and African Americans’ shared histories, activism, and “the incident”:
I initially wanted to write about the significance of Zendaya wearing vintage pieces for . But after Law Roach’s announcement, I needed to center his unparalleled connoisseurship and impact in light of his retirement:
