On Wyatt Cenac, ‘Key & Peele,’ And Being The Only One In The Room

The Stewart-Cenac exchange illustrates what those of us who are often The Only One In The Room tend to know: It sucks. But it turns out that being The Only One isn’t simply burdensome and annoying on an individual level. There’s evidence that when people feel like they’re The Only One in a group, even a group that professes to care about diversity in its ranks, it actually gets in the way of everything said diversity was supposed to achieve in the first place.

We have to do better than just “diversity”. We can do better, and one of the first and most important things white people can do at this point is just fucking listen to what people of color and women and gays and everyone else is saying.

Just fucking listen.