Malik Shakur® | The Color of My Politics
@malikshakur.bsky.social
Creative by day, recovering suit by night. Essayist and storyteller across page, stage, screen, and TV. I write, produce, direct, act, puncture political nonsense, and stay unapologetically Black.
Democracy Apparently Started Dying When Important People Noticed Black Americans have been filing the same complaint for generations. The difference is that now the complaint has institutional stationery. medium.com/from-the-min...
Democracy Apparently Started Dying When Important People Noticed
Black Americans have been filing the same complaint for generations. The difference is that now the complaint has institutional stationery.
medium.com
The White House Would Prefer Better Reviews Unfortunately for the president, the First Amendment is not a customer satisfaction policy. medium.com/from-the-min...
The White House Would Prefer Better Reviews
Unfortunately for the president, the First Amendment is not a customer satisfaction policy.
medium.com
The Bronx Does Not Issue Blackness by Zip Code Shared culture can explain why Fat Joe says nigga. It cannot turn "I grew up there" into "I'm the Blackest nigga you ever seen." medium.com/@malikshakur...
The Bronx Does Not Issue Blackness by Zip Code
Shared culture can explain why Fat Joe says nigga. It cannot turn "I grew up there" into "I'm the Blackest nigga you ever seen."
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The Weaponization of Entertainment How Hollywood sells trauma as culture. medium.com/the-color-of...
The Weaponization of Entertainment
How Hollywood sells trauma as culture.
medium.com
Milo Yiannopoulos Finally Got the Immigration Experience He Kept Recommending medium.com/@malikshakur...
Milo Yiannopoulos Finally Got the Immigration Experience He Kept Recommending
He wanted sweeping deportations, checkpoints, and aggressive enforcement. Then detention left him frightened, humiliated, and made him…
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SIX DEGREES OF OSAMA BIN LADEN IS NOT A LEGAL STANDARD A defense lawyer is not his client, a ceremonial pen is not a confession, and due process does not come with a Muslim exception. medium.com/@malikshakur...
SIX DEGREES OF OSAMA BIN LADEN IS NOT A LEGAL STANDARD
A defense lawyer is not his client, a ceremonial pen is not a confession, and due process does not come with a Muslim exception.
medium.com
Fat Joe's Problem Isn't Saying Nigga. It's Niggas Telling Him No. Apparently, exclusivity is perfectly reasonable until Black people are the ones doing the excluding. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Fat Joe's Problem Isn't Saying Nigga. It's Niggas Telling Him No.
Apparently, exclusivity is perfectly reasonable until Black people are the ones doing the excluding.
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Black Women on Screen Queens, caricatures, and everything in between. medium.com/the-color-of...
Black Women on Screen
Queens, caricatures, and everything in between.
medium.com
Apparently, White People on the Left Are Very Surprised, But America Has Done This Before There is something almost touching about the national determination to act as though political intimidation at the ballot box were an exotic new development in American life. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Apparently, White People on the Left Are Very Surprised, But America Has Done This Before
There is something almost touching about the national determination to act as though political intimidation at the ballot box were an…
medium.com
You Did Not Read the Article. You Entered a Plea. The comment section is now in session, and confidence is not admissible as evidence. medium.com/@malikshakur...
You Did Not Read the Article. You Entered a Plea.
The comment section is now in session, and confidence is not admissible as evidence.
medium.com
Gloria Steinem Changed the Room. The Interesting Question Is What Happened Next. She helped transform American feminism. Honoring that legacy requires telling the fuller story of who entered the room and who had the power to define it. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Gloria Steinem Changed the Room. The Interesting Question Is What Happened Next.
She helped transform American feminism. Honoring that legacy requires telling the fuller story of who entered the room and who had the…
medium.com
Bill Cosby, Respectability Politics, and Moral Failure Bill Cosby became a symbol of Black respectability politics before his own moral failures exposed the contradictions at the heart of that message. medium.com/the-color-of...
Bill Cosby, Respectability Politics, and Moral Failure
Bill Cosby became a symbol of Black respectability politics before his own moral failures exposed the contradictions at the heart of that…
medium.com
Parenting Teenagers: Raising Children, Not Accessories Parents cannot raise children as extensions of themselves. Real parenting requires listening, boundaries, trust, accountability, and an actual relationship. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Parenting Teenagers: Raising Children, Not Accessories
Parents cannot raise children as extensions of themselves. Real parenting requires listening, boundaries, trust, accountability, and an…
medium.com
You Didn't Defend Clarence Thomas. You Just Found Another Black Man to Put on Trial. medium.com/@malikshakur...
You Didn't Defend Clarence Thomas. You Just Found Another Black Man to Put on Trial.
A nearly 3,000-word sermon on Black intellectual freedom that ends by deciding Barack Obama failed the racial loyalty test is not…
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You're Not One of the Good Ones. You're Just Useful. If your safety depends on helping powerful people decide who gets humiliated next, you are not being accepted. You are being employed. medium.com/@malikshakur...
You're Not One of the Good Ones. You're Just Useful.
If your safety depends on helping powerful people decide who gets humiliated next, you are not being accepted. You are being employed.
medium.com
A Thumb, a Rock, and the Price of Independence Stephen A. Smith shrugged off being called dumb as a rock by the President. Then Black journalists gave him a thumbs-down, and suddenly criticism became persecution. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Hip-Hop: The Gospel According to the Streets From message to money — how we lost and found our voice again. medium.com/the-color-of...
Hip-Hop: The Gospel According to the Streets
From message to money — how we lost and found our voice again.
medium.com
The Loudest Confidence Is Usually Borrowed They didn't arrive at these beliefs. They inherited them and mistook them for their own thinking. medium.com/@malikshakur...
The Loudest Confidence Is Usually Borrowed
They didn't arrive at these beliefs. They inherited them and mistook them for their own thinking.
medium.com
The Man Who Read "Nation of Islam" and Immediately Started Fighting a Spaceship A reader saw three words, ignored two entire articles, and launched himself directly into orbit. medium.com/@malikshakur...
The Man Who Read "Nation of Islam" and Immediately Started Fighting a Spaceship
A reader saw three words, ignored two entire articles, and launched himself directly into orbit.
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The White Gaze How do we perform for acceptance while losing ourselves in the act? medium.com/the-color-of...
The White Gaze
How do we perform for acceptance while losing ourselves in the act?
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The Acceptable Volume of Pain The Problem Isn't the Emotion. It's the Body Carrying It. medium.com/@malikshakur...
The Acceptable Volume of Pain
The Problem Isn't the Emotion. It's the Body Carrying It.
medium.com
Sir, You Brought Five Black Conservatives to a Reading-Comprehension Problem. The essay already mocked white liberals, never accused every white person, and explicitly rejected racial biology. But please, tell me more about Thomas Sowell and my fucking capitalization. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Sir, You Brought Five Black Conservatives to a Reading-Comprehension Problem.
Sir, You Brought Five Black Conservatives to a Reading-Comprehension Problem. The essay already mocked white liberals, never accused every white person, and explicitly rejected racial biology. But …
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God Has a ZIP Code Why your eternal truth keeps arriving at the same address you were born into. medium.com/@malikshakur...
God Has a ZIP Code
Why your eternal truth keeps arriving at the same address you were born into.
medium.com
Spread the Word: There's Colored People on TV When visibility became victory — or so we thought. medium.com/the-color-of...
Spread the Word: There's Colored People on TV
When visibility became victory — or so we thought.
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The People Yelling "Merit" Keep Bringing a Ladder to the Interview medium.com/@malikshakur...
The People Yelling "Merit" Keep Bringing a Ladder to the Interview
There is a particular kind of political performance happening right now in which people sabotage public institutions, hollow out…
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Sir, You Are Not The Exception. You Are The Exhibit. A reader proudly volunteered to serve as evidence for the argument he thought he was refuting. medium.com/@malikshakur...
Sir, You Are Not The Exception. You Are The Exhibit.
A reader proudly volunteered to serve as evidence for the argument he thought he was refuting.
medium.com
The Model Minority Was Never Proof That Racism Had Ended Part Two It was proof that America had found a minority willing to help change the subject. medium.com/@malikshakur...
The Model Minority Was Never Proof That Racism Had Ended Part Two
It was proof that America had found a minority willing to help change the subject.
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