In The Root’s efforts to reduce the amount of required daily reading about the Caucasian clutching of pearls, we have decided to condense the collective woes of wypipo into this brief listing of the things melaninless America will be weeping about this week.
This checklist can come in handy for a number of reasons: Use it as a guide for understanding why Sarah in the cubicle next to you at work seems particularly agitated today. Allow this to be your answer when you—as we all do—wonder why the hell they would ever not have a smile on their face. If nothing else, you can do what I do: Use it as a game board to check off each incident when you hear your Caucasian friend complain about something. I call it “White Tears Bingo” (patent pending, trademark applied for).
Issa Rae Makes “Racist” Remark at the Emmys
Even though white people don’t know who Issa Rae is (they know she has a show on HBO: “She’s the black girl who has the show about black girls that comes on after Game of Thrones, right? I think it’s called Insincere”), they were big mad when she commented that she was “rooting for everybody black” at the Emmys.
Fox News host and guy-who-took-names-when-the-teacher-left-the-classroom Tucker Carlson said of Rae’s proclamation: “I think looking at the world like that gets you to civil war,” and I agree. Hopefully, this means if Insecure is ever canceled, we can march around a statue of Molly erected in a Middle American town square, toting tiki torches while screaming, “You will not replace Issa!”
White-tears potential: Two teaspoons of “But if a white person said that ... ”
National Park Service Gives Money to Study Black Panther Party
Shhh! Can you hear that? It sounds like accidental diarrhea. It’s the sound of wypipo losing their shit after hearing the National Park Service’s announcement that it will award the University of California, Berkeley, $97,999.70 to document and preserve the legacy of the Black Panther Party.
In describing the BPP, the Daily Wire called it a “black extremist organization” that “advocated the use of violence and guerrilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government,” echoing a 1966 quote by the FBI. The Daily Wire neglected to mention that the quote came from the FBI’s illegal Counterintelligence Program, code-named “COINTELPRO,” whose motive was to “prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement,” and which targeted people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as the Black Panther Party.
Bill O’Reilly is already mad as hell, and he doesn’t even have a job! Imagine how upset the employed racists are going to be when they hear where their tax money is going.
White-tears potential: A 5-gallon bucket of erasing Beyoncé songs from their iTunes accounts.
Wypipo Can’t Dance Because of St. Louis Protests
St. Louis’ Caucasian concertgoers are miffed that they won’t be able to writhe arrhythmically to wailing guitar licks because people are upset about a police officer hunting down a black guy, shooting him at point-blank range, planting the gun in the corpse’s car and getting away with it scot-free.
On another note, can you ever remember being “miffed” about anything? It must be nice to be miffed about something instead of stark-raving mad because someone was slaughtered under the protection of the law. I want to be miffed, just once—if only to see how it feels.
Both U2 and Ed Sheeran canceled concerts in St. Louis because of protests after Jason Stockley was acquitted of first-degree murder ... on camera ... after announcing he was going to do it ... on camera. To be fair, Anthony Lamar Smith couldn’t have gone to see ginger Shrek or the Joshua Tree Tour, even if he did have tickets.
He’s dead, you know.
White-tears potential: 4.7-5.5 liters. (We used the metric system because U2 and Ed Sheeran are from Ireland and the United Kingdom, respectively. Also, because the average human body contains between 4.7 and 5.5 liters of blood—the amount that’s on Jason Stockley’s and Missouri Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson’s filthy hands.)
Suicide by Cop in Atlanta
After a knife-wielding white student at Georgia Tech was shot by police, red-faced Caucasians participated in violent protests Monday night. Police say they haven’t seen this level of violence from an angry white mob since Charlottesville, Va. Or when the San Francisco Giants won the World Series. Or the bombing of Black Wall Street. Or every war ever.
The white protesters set a police car on fire calling the death an unjust murder and screamed, “Protect LGBTQ!” even though 21-year-old Scout Schultz left three suicide notes. Like Justine Damond, whose death changed the Minneapolis police force only weeks after Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted in the killing of Philando Castile, or how the danger of white supremacy didn’t exist until Heather Headley was killed by a white supremacist, Schultz’s death highlighted the need for police officers to have de-escalation training.
In light of the protests, 2Chainz and Migos said they weren’t canceling shit.
Remarkably, no one has asked why Schultz wouldn’t comply, or said how the cops probably “feared for their lives.” Students around the campus were visibly upset, although it wasn’t clear if their despair was for Schultz or if they were still sad about the other unforgettable tragedy ...
... when Atlanta blew a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl.
White-tears potential: It’s a white person, so it can’t be measured. Plus, I gotta be honest:
I’m a little miffed.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated Schultz’s gender. Schultz did not identify as female.