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With Maybelline Mocha and an Afro wig, white author explores 'Blackness' in a new book
The cover art of Sam Forster’s book, Seven Shoulders: Taxonomizing Racism in Modern America.
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Sam Forster expected some pushback online when he announced his latest book, Seven Shoulders: Taxonomizing Racism in Modern America.
Detailed accounts of America’s racial divide are nothing new, and particularly in the years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, there has been renewed interest in the topic.
But the key difference between Forster’s account and those written by others is that Forster, a white man, said he “disguised” himself as Black — donning an Afro wig and dark foundation — to get a firsthand account of modern life as a person of color.
“Certainly I was aware that people were going to express criticism of the book on those grounds, but I feel like the book that I produced was an important enough contribution to the discourse to overcome those concerns,” the 27-year-old Forster told NPR.
When the Montreal resident first announced his project in a since-deleted tweet on X (formerly Twitter), the backlash was swift and severe.
“I disguised myself as a Black man and traveled throughout the United States to document how racism persists in American society,” he wrote. “Writing Seven Shoulders was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done as a journalist.”
The tweet was quickly ratioed — with responses and quotes of the tweet outperforming likes on the message more than 15 to 1.
“U had to do blackface to understand the issues black ppl face….?,” one incredulous X user responded.
“You could have spoken with Black Americans,” another replied. “I have serious questions as to WHY and HOW you disguised yourself as a Black American to write this book!”
The “how” of the disguise is easy to answer. Hitchhiking across the United States — including the Las Vegas desert in the scorching summer — Forster wore a hoodie to cover most of his body.
Onto his irises went dark contact lenses to conceal his conspicuously blue eyes, an Afro wig covered his hair, and perhaps most jarringly, he slathered dark foundation, specifically, liquid Maybelline in the shade mocha, onto his face, hands and neck.
It’s the “why” that has left most people, even Forster himself, confused at times.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
Despite his confidence in hindsight discussing the importance of his choice to perform what he calls “journalistic blackface,” writing in the book, Forster expresses doubt at his decision-making.
“My pupils connect with themselves in the mirror’s reflection. I am applying the dark foundation to my cheeks and forehead. Even after a few days’ worth of experience, performing this transformation feels very bizarre,” he writes.
“What are you doing, Sam???” he continues. “Is this too far?”
For many who have heard of the new book, for which the idea was conceived, executed and self-published within a year, the answer is yes.
The nonfiction account currently sits near the top of new releases in Black and African American History on Amazon. But the reviews are a dismal 1.5 stars out of 5 on the e-commerce site.
“The idea that we need someone to take on a Black identity, or identity of the other, in order to understand, I think in a number of ways really just dismisses the mounds of historical evidence that we have,” said Derrick Brooms, executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College.
“To say that ‘I need to write a book and ignore what Black folks have been telling us and continue to tell us,’ I don’t really see what the place of that is in a healthy understanding of race and racism in the 21st century,” Brooms said.
“Journalistic blackface”
Forster said he was inspired to write the book after reading previous accounts of white people dressing up in blackface for journalistic purposes.
He specifically cites John Howard Griffin’s 1961’s Black Like Me, in which the white author recounts darkening his skin with an anti-vitiligo drug in order to understand racial strife in the Jim Crow South.
“Obviously in American society there was major civil rights legislation that was passed in the early ’60s. You know, most notably there was the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was 60 years ago from this year, which I found to be an interesting milestone or anniversary or whatever, to see sort of how things have progressed,” Forster said.
Among the many critics of Forster’s use of blackface has been the NAACP, a civil rights organization focused on the advancement of Black Americans.
Writing on X, the organization’s president, Derrick Johnson said: “Being able to pick and choose when you experience ‘blackness’ is not a reality for the millions of Black people we serve, who face racism and marginalization every day.”
“Next time try investing time in centering authentic Black voices and experiences.”
Being able to pick and choose when you experience “blackness” is not a reality for the millions of Black people we serve, who face racism and marginalization every day.
Next time try investing time in centering authentic Black voices and experiences. https://t.co/BTRqoViSfH— Derrick Johnson (@DerrickNAACP) May 30, 2024
The response to the backlash
Forster did not consult with any Black people ahead of undertaking the experiment. That, he said, would have been pandering.
And he was reluctant to share what feedback he has received from any Black friends or colleagues.
Instead, responding to the public backlash, Forster said that there are many people who are pleased with his work and are likely afraid to speak openly.
When pressed as to whether there is any validity to concerns that his use of blackface could be viewed offensively — if perhaps the resounding outrage has any merit — Forster is defensive.
“I believe that a lot of that passion is misguided or not grounded in a well-understood review of what the book is actually about,” Forster said.
“I understood that it would be a controversial project, and I’m optimistic that as more people read the book and as reviews come out in the future, that the visible response will become more balanced.”
Forster describes the revelations of ongoing racism as not “terribly shocking” to anyone who has spent considerable time in the United States.
“The actual portion of the book where I’m, you know, doing this immersive journalism is really only the middle section,” Forster said.
“And I’m using it to identify how a very, very specific form of interpersonal racism could manifest in American society through the act of hitchhiking as someone who appears white, and then again as someone who appears Black.”
If going into the project not expecting to break new ground on well-documented instances of anti-Black discrimination, why do it at all?
Forster insists that it is his role as a writer to commit to storytelling.
“My job is to write books that people find interesting and compelling and stimulating,” he said. “I want to write things that force people to have conversations about culture and about our experiences, and I think I’ve done that, and I think I’ve done it in a way that’s sensible, and honest, and as respectful as I could speak in.”
When asked if these same experiences could have been relayed by an actual Black person speaking to their lived experience, Forster acknowledges that people are “unsettled” by the “journalistic tactics” he employed.
But, he says, in order for some in white America who downplay the existence of racism, maybe the voice of a white man would be more compelling.
“There is a considerable portion of white America that believes Black racial grievance is exaggerated or entirely fabricated and who find the writing of white journalists or academics more compelling than the writing of Black academics,” he said. “… I don’t feel the need to apologize for that.”
If you’re struggling to use up leftovers like a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, turn the assignment into a creative exercise, says chef Margaret Li. It’ll make the cooking process more fun and less guilt-driven.
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On a recent weeknight, I opened up my fridge and found an assortment of half-eaten or ignored food.
That included takeout that I didn’t find appetizing enough to eat for lunch. A rotisserie chicken with most of the meat picked off. A couple of raw vegetables from the farmers market that were starting to wilt.
“There’s nothing to eat,” I told myself. Yet even I knew that was ridiculous. There was plenty of food in my fridge. I just didn’t feel inspired to cook with it.
So I asked some chefs for guidance. How could I more consistently use leftovers and the other ingredients I tend to overlook?
Start with a mindset shift, says Margaret Li, chef and co-author of the cookbook Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Think about cooking with leftovers as a creative, experimental exercise, not a guilt-driven one.
“It ends up being this fun game where you are creating something from what seems like nothing and solving this puzzle, and then you get to eat it,” she says.
There are other good reasons to use up your food scraps. Nationally, about a quarter of food products go to waste, according to the nonprofit ReFED. In my own household, where we spend about $200 a week on groceries, that means I might be throwing out the equivalent of $50 of food — an unnecessary burden on my wallet, not to mention the environment.
The chefs I spoke to had some practical tips about using up more of the food we buy. Here are a few that I put to the test.
Find your “hero recipes”
Build up an arsenal of go-to recipes that are flexible enough to use up just about any ingredient. Li calls them “hero recipes.”
I tried one of these from her cookbook, called “Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry.” (Scroll down for the recipe.) It includes loose ingredients like “1 pound crisp-crunchy vegetables” or “4 cups leafy greens.”
In the spirit of the recipe, I pulled vegetables out of my fridge at random and did not measure them out. The sauce was a simple mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and water. By the time I topped my bowl with chopped scallions, the dish looked like a gourmet meal, not an afterthought.
Other ideas: “You could put anything in a frittata, and it’ll be great,” says Tamar Adler, chef and author of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z.
Or, if you have day-old rice on hand, cook it alongside other ingredients to make fried rice. “Saute some aromatics — ginger, garlic, onion — in oil,” Adler says. Then add your rice and whatever leftover bits you have, like the rotisserie chicken and older produce I had in my fridge.
“Just take the approach of making it more flavorful and crispy and then spicy, and then usually adding a squeeze of lemon,” Adler says.
Label your leftovers
Keep a permanent marker and painter’s tape in your kitchen to label and date your leftovers, Li says. “That is a classic chef’s method for knowing what something is and when it was made. That saves you the guessing game.”
Adler takes the concept a step further and labels her leftovers with their intended use. Leftover blueberries are labeled “muffins-to-be on Tuesday,” she says. “I really like doing that — assigning the destiny of the food.”
So after a night of Ethiopian takeout, when we ended up with an entire container of leftover injera, I followed Adler’s advice and thought about what it might become in the future.
I imagined scrambling the spongy, tangy bread with eggs, akin to scrambling matzo into matzo brei. “Injera for eggs,” I wrote on the container. Sure enough, their destiny was fulfilled the following morning.
Li keeps a dedicated bag in her freezer just for scraps from which to make chicken or vegetable stock. That bag houses carrot peels, the ends of onions, extra garlic cloves and chicken bones.
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Don’t forget your odds and ends
Adler encouraged me to never, ever throw away the stems of herbs. Stems don’t get as much glory as tender, pretty leaves, but they still have the same herby taste.
“I’m going to chop these herbs up or stick them in a blender with a clove of garlic,” she says. Then add olive oil. “And then it’s just gonna be my base sauce for everything.”
So I foraged a few varieties of half-cut herbs from my refrigerator drawers, most of them sad looking and unidentifiable.
I threw out the stems that had turned brown and gooey and put the rest in a blender. I added garlic on Adler’s instructions, nuts and kale for bulk, and plenty of olive oil and salt. Then, on a whim, I added a splash of olive juice for brightness.
The result was somewhere between a pesto and a chimichurri, and it elevated that night’s otherwise routine dinner. And Adler was right: Once the stems were blended, it tasted exactly the same as the leaves. (The same idea applies for broccoli stems in a cheesy broccoli soup, Li says.)
Li likes to keep her odds and ends organized with an “Eat Me First” box in her fridge. That’s where she keeps half-used lemons, leftover coconut milk or produce that’s starting to get wrinkly. “You kind of have an idea for, OK, here’s where you look first,” she says.
Don’t strive for perfection
Cooking these meals did feel like a game, as Li had suggested. It brought me unexpected joy to use up as many existing ingredients as possible — to the point where I often spent much longer in the kitchen because I kept thinking of new ideas: If I turn these wrinkly sweet potatoes into a soup, then I can caramelize this half-cut onion for a topping, and then I can use the leftover soup as a sauce tomorrow …
Did I cook more often, though? Probably not. My cooking energy burned brighter but fizzled out after a few nights, at which point I ordered takeout.
So I was glad to hear Li’s take: If you’re too hard on yourself, you’re not going to enjoy it at all. “ I try not to be too obsessive about eating absolutely everything,” she says. If my takeout was truly terrible, I’m allowed to toss it or, better yet, compost it.
If you really want to use up everything, you can always chuck ingredients into the freezer. Li has dedicated freezer bags for different dishes, like vegetable scraps for soups or fruit discards for smoothies. (She labels them, of course.)
And how does that smoothie taste? It’s “delicious,” she says, “even if it’s made up of all the things that have been rejected in the past,” she says.
Recipe: Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry
Excerpted from Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Copyright ©2023 by Irene Li and Margaret Li. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon black vinegar, rice vinegar, lime juice, or other acid
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil, or enough to lightly coat the bottom of your wok or skillet
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced or minced, or more as desired
- ½-inch piece fresh ginger, minced or grated (optional)
- Pinch chili flakes or 1 small chile pepper, diced (optional)
- 4 cups leafy greens, torn into bite-size pieces, or 1 pound crisp-crunchy vegetables, cut into chunks
- Kosher salt
Stir the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and set by the stove.
Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat until just smoking, then add the neutral oil and tilt to coat the bottom of the pan.
Add the garlic, ginger (if using), and chili flakes (if using) and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add the greens and/or vegetables, in stages as necessary, and toss in the garlicky oil, then add the sauce and cook to your liking, stirring frequently.
Vegetable chunks may need 4 to 7 minutes — if you want to speed up the process, cover the pot so the vegetables steam for a minute or two, then uncover and toss again. Sturdy greens may need 3 to 5 minutes to get tender (we like to let them sit for a bit and char for extra texture).
Lighter leaves will need less than a minute to wilt down. Stir in a spoonful of any additional sauce you like, season with salt to taste, then sprinkle with your favorite garnishes and a generous drizzle of sesame oil.
A sprinkle of crunch is a great way to finish a stir-fry. Our favorites include crushed cashews or peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, thinly sliced scallions, and fried onions or shallots.
Your turn: What are your favorite go-to leftover recipes?
We’d love to hear from you! Share your recipe with us at lifekit@npr.org with your full name. We may publish it on NPR.org.
The story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and sign up for our newsletter. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit.
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Indie rock legend and founder of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus, joins us to play a game called, “Pavement repairs are underway!” Three questions about road construction.
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When Julio Miranda-Martin began his apartment search, he had one nonnegotiable: He wanted a dedicated dining room to entertain his friends. He was scouring Zillow in 2025 when a listing for a railroad-style, one-bedroom on the edge of West Hollywood came up that included the requisite dining room. It was also walking distance to his part-time job as a marketing coordinator at furniture store Lawson-Fenning. More importantly, at $2,500 a month it was within his budget.
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Miranda-Martin met with his landlord the same day he found the listing, who told him he looks like his son. Feeling like finding this 950-square-foot apartment was kismet, Miranda-Martin signed the lease and set about creating a sophisticated and color-saturated sanctuary. Miranda-Martin decided he needed to make two major investments before moving in: painting the walls and changing the lighting. “I was finally able to move into a place that I actually like, not just out of necessity. I was like, let’s make it feel like my own,” says Miranda-Martin, who refers to the space as his “living canvas.”
In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.
The apartment is on the second floor of a fourplex, up a windowless staircase. Miranda-Martin embraced the lack of light and painted it a high-gloss crimson. Without natural light, he hard-wired sconces found on Facebook Marketplace that recall ornamental 18th century candlesticks. They cast a dim but moody light throughout the staircase, ending with an ornate mirror at the top. The mirror shows a glimpse of the apartment’s interior in its reflection when Miranda-Martin opens the door. “Every time people walk in, especially at night, it’s such a dramatic entry,” he explains. “It’s very cinematic,” agrees friend and co-worker Kristin Reeder, who is often a guest at his soirees, “like something from ‘Eyes Wide Shut.’ ”
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1. Julio Miranda-Martin’s apartment decor starts in the bold staircase that leads to his door. 2. A mirror at the top of the staircase offers extra depth. 3. Julio Miranda-Martin fills the bookshelf in his dining room with books and treasures.
In contrast, the living room offers a calmer palette of sky blues and earthy browns. Miranda-Martin tends to choose paint colors based on the light. The living room, with abundant west-facing windows brings in soft, bright light. Miranda-Martin painted it with Benjamin Moore’s Navajo, a flat white, as a backdrop to the softer hues of the furniture he designed at his furniture and lighting company, Studio MM. “It adds a stillness,” he says.
The room is anchored by a large velvet couch in a rich brown. The modular couch is anchored on each side with Art-Deco influenced side tables, lamps and light blue slipper chairs he designed, setting up a cozy tableau for hosting his friends. Pale pink cushioned ottomans provide additional seating that can easily be moved around the room to accommodate additional guests.
A velvet couch acts as a statement piece in the apartment living room.
(Etienne Laurent/For the Times)
French doors separate the living room from the dining room. The chartreuse-infused dining room returns to a more dramatic colorway. With less natural light, Miranda-Martin wanted to play up the idea of dining-room-as-treehouse, reflecting the second-floor foliage visible from the small windows. Rather than trying to brighten the room, he leaned into the moodiness by buying inexpensive, USB battery-powered spotlights that are mounted on the ceiling with magnets. Taking an alcohol marker, he tinted the lights a soft amber, allowing him to highlight the art in the room without adding harsh overhead lighting.
The dining room is meant to reflect the foliage just outside the window.
(Etienne Laurent/For the Times)
A shell-adorned mirror anchors the wall facing the windows and built-in shelving, making the room feel larger. Miranda-Martin sourced two shell-shaped sconces that flank the mirror at an estate sale in San Francisco. Most of the art and home decor comes from Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, or is thrifted from local stores. Estate sales are also a source, though Miranda-Martin feels the rising popularity of these sales in Los Angeles has led to an increase in pricing. “They’ve gotten so over the top now in L.A. [They’re] super expensive. You’re not really gonna find a deal,” he laments, citing the armed security checking bags recently at some of the hottest estate sales.
In addition to changing the lighting and painting the walls, Miranda-Martin prioritized the window treatments, with pinch pleat curtains from Ikea. “Drapery can just make a space feel super elevated,” he advises. He prefers a mix of new and vintage decor, balancing both for an eclectic but deeply personal look to his home. He tries not to overthink his aesthetic choices. “I think it’s very instinctual. I’m not really thinking, ‘Is this in good taste or is this going to be weird?,’ ” he says.
Down the hall, the bedroom’s mostly white design theme returns to a more serene composition, providing a quiet sanctuary. Miranda-Martin removed the headboard from his bed, making it seem like it’s floating between the night tables he designed. “Everything feels sort of streamlined and smooth,” says Miranda-Martin. Like the living room, the bedroom is painted the same flat white but the quality of the eastern light filtering into the bedroom casts a buttery glow.
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1. Ceramics fill inset shelves in the kitchen. 2. A glass case in the apartment corridor between the dining room and the bedroom. 3. With its lighter decor, the bedroom was meant to be a sanctuary.
The small kitchen retains its midcentury charm, but open shelving above the counter provides an airier, more contemporary cupboard to show off Miranda-Martin’s dish and glassware collection. The easier access comes in handy when he’s entertaining. His apartment is the perfect pre-game space for him and his friends before a night on the town. He tries to make sure he pre-batches cocktails before his guests arrive.
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“I’m kind of going through a phase right now where I need to be around people,” admits Miranda-Martin. “I think I just hate being alone.”
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