Damon Young
The Root
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Contact Damon
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Past articles by Damon:
Why Steve Harvey Should Be the Next Jeopardy! Host
He's the host America deserves and the one we need right now. → Read More
Yup, I Used To Believe That Georgetown University Was An HBCU. Here's Why
The basketball team was so Black that it made the university Black by osmosis → Read More
I'll Be Around
This month makes 10 years from the weekend I drove from Pittsburgh to D.C. for a party to celebrate both the three-year anniversary of the launch of VerySmartBrothas—the blog Panama Jackson, Liz Burr, and I created in 2008—and the release of Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night, a self-published compilation of satirical dating and relationship advice from VSB. That night would also be the… → Read More
15 Things the Pandemic Taught Me About Being an Introvert
1. No one gives a shit 2. Seriously 3. No one cares 4. I guess I knew this before the pandemic, actually 5. When all those “How introverted are you?” quizzes infested the internet 6. And every introvert was like “Finally! I’m seen! I’m understood! Finally there’s a word to explain why I hate small talk and saying goodbye at parties and when people ask me harmless questions about things I don’t… → Read More
Yeah, I Can Watch This Clip of Daniel Kaluuya and His Famous Bruvs Celebrating His Oscar Win Forever
One of the everlasting values of Saturday Night Live is that it recreates a dynamic that really only exists one other place in popular culture—the NBA All-Star Game. Although the intensity level of that game is notoriously inconsistent, what remains static is how easy it is to discern comfort. In this group of the 24 best basketball players on Earth, who looks like they belong, and who looks… → Read More
Diddy Ruins Everything, Everybody
“Whoa” was a bulldozer of a track—a concussive and relentless four minutes that felt like you’d just been injected with a dose of Harlem, and not Ma$e’s Harlem, but Big L’s. To be in the club, on the floor, in 2000, when a DJ dropped that track felt life-threatening in all the best ways. But Black Rob’s best song was “I Love You Baby”—a graphic and cinematic saga about a woman who set him up to… → Read More
Hubert Davis Was so Close to Having a Forgettable Press Conference
The first 38 minutes of Hubert Davis’ introductory press conference as the new men’s basketball head coach at the University of North Carolina hit each of the points that new hires for high-profile coaching gigs are expected to. → Read More
Christians With Ashy Souls Believe That God Is Ashy, Too
While watching and admiring Lil Nas X’s mastery of Twitter over the past week, I’m reminded a bit of John Wick. Specifically, Wick in the nightclub in John Wick, which is the first time we truly see him do some quintessentially Wick shit. → Read More
I'm Not Really Into Hyperbole, but Usher's 'U Don't Have to Call' Is the Best Song Ever Made
Earlier this week, Panama Jackson refreshed and reshared a 2017 piece declaring Mark Morrison’s “Return of The Mack” the best song ever that no one acknowledges is the best song ever. → Read More
Whiteness Is a Pandemic
I don’t have much to add here today that hasn’t already been said. → Read More
It Doesn't Feel Like It's Been a Year
So I was soft-hedging off my man because I knew that the ball-hander would be coming off the screen looking to pass, not shoot. I’d played with him—and most of the rest of the people on the court that evening at LA Fitness—enough to know his tendencies. Whether he liked to turn to his right or his left shoulder when posting (his right); if he’d leave his feet on upfakes (no); and if he’d… → Read More
Did Queen Aoleon Joffer and Cleo McDowell Eventually Bone?
In anticipation of the upcoming Coming to America sequel, we decided to devote a week to some observations, questions, and theories we’ve always had about the iconic original. → Read More
The Fits of Coming to America's Darryl Jenks, Ranked From "He Looks Warm" to "WTF Is That?"
In anticipation of the upcoming Coming to America sequel, we decided to devote a week to some observations, questions, and theories we’ve always had about the iconic original. → Read More
28 Days of Black Joy: My Lush, Opulent, and Juicy Pandemic Beard
Can you be attracted to your own beard? Not the face it covers. Just the beard. My face is fine, I guess. It’s a nose and some eyes and a mouth, like most faces. I’m grateful for it. But I’m not, like, thinking about boning it, like the way I’d try to bone my Chewbacca pandemic beard, if such a thing were possible and socially acceptable. → Read More
Rush Limbaugh Died Today. Here Are Some More Sneakers I Own.
So I’d never heard of the Bergdorf Goodman store until Pusha T made a reference to it in “Higher”—which, all things considered, is probably one of my 15 favorite rap songs. Not to be outdone by a middle-aged rapper with perpetual protective styles, I made a trek to Bergdorf Goodman while in New York City a couple of years ago, developed a nosebleed after seeing the prices of the items there, but… → Read More
I Thought I'd Never See a Finale as Bad as Game of Thrones's. Then I Watched Showtime's Your Honor
“I just don’t get what you get out of watching this” my wife said to me, several times over the past two months, while I watched Showtime’s Your Honor—the Bryan Cranston-led limited series about a series of increasingly terrible moral quandaries a New Orleans judge finds himself in after making a series of increasingly amoral decisions. “This show is painful.” → Read More
The Only Reason Why You Should Put Sugar on Grits
Before I began writing this, I finished eating a makeshift breakfast of two-and-a-half scrambled eggs mixed with shreds of pork pulled from the leftover ribs of last night’s dinner order. It was a slightly disappointing meal—not because of the taste of the food, but the temperature of it. I sat down to eat it at the same time as a scheduled phone call, and I didn’t touch it until the call was… → Read More
Everything You Need to Know About the GameStop, Reddit, and Stock Market Story, Explained
Thank you! → Read More
A List of People Who Asked for Apple's Limited Edition, Black History Month, 'Black Unity Collection' Watch
1. No one 2. Nobody 3. Nathan 4. Nan niggas > Members of the Black creative community and allies throughout Apple came together to design an Apple Watch Sport Band and Apple Watch face to honor the ongoing fight for racial justice. Inspired by the call to action of both the historic and current movements, the Black Unity Sport Band has “Truth. Power. Solidarity.” laser-engraved onto the… → Read More
Red Lobster Is the Greatest Place on Earth and I'm Tired of Y'all Pretending Like It Ain't
I do not remember the first time I went to Red Lobster. Which is fine. I also do not remember the first time I saw Halle Berry. But I know that my reaction was the same: How does something so perfect exist and are there more of these in Cleveland? → Read More