CONTENTS

I.
LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MAGICAL NEGROES

I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against a Sharp White Background

Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s

Everything Will Be Taken Away

Magical Negro #3: The Strong Black Woman

The High Priestess of Soul’s Sunday Morning Visit to the Wall of Respect

AND COLD SUNSET

Nancy Meyers and My Dream of Whiteness

Whites Only

Magical Negro #607: Gladys Knight on the 200th Episode of The Jeffersons

Magical Negro #84: The Black Body

Sammy Davis Jr.

Let’s Get Some Better Angels at This Party

The History of Black People

II.
FIELD NEGRO FIELD NOTES

Two White Girls in the African Braid Shop on Marcy and Fulton

“Now More Than Ever”

Black Women for Beginners Pt. 1

When a Man I Love Jerks Off in My Bed next to Me and Falls Asleep

Who Were Frederick Douglass’s Cousins, and Other Quotidian Black History Facts That I Wish I Learned in School

A Brief History of the Present

Ode to Fried Chicken’s Guest Appearance on Scandal

Magical Negro #1: Jesus Christ

Matt

“Lilac Wine” by Eartha Kitt vs. “Lilac Wine” by Jeff Buckley

What I Am

If you are over staying woke

Who Speaks for the Earth?

Black Ego (Original Soundtrack)

I TOLD MY THERAPIST I TRIED TO MEDITATE AND SHE LAUGHED

“Parker’s Mood” by Charlie Parker

III.
POPULAR NEGRO PUNCHLINES

GREAT AMERICA

Magical Negro #89: Michael Jackson in Blackface on a Date with Tatum O’Neal, 1970s

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

My Sister Says White Supremacy Is Turning Her Crazy

We Are the House That Holds the Table at Which Yes We Will Happily Take a Goddamn Seat

Why the Jive Bird Sings

Magical Negro #80: Brooklyn

The Black Saint & the Sinner Lady & the Dead & the Truth

Preface to a Twenty Volume Joke Book

Toward a New Theory of Negro Propaganda

IT WAS SUMMER NOW AND THE COLORED PEOPLE CAME OUT INTO THE SUNSHINE