It’s Oscar season! Actually, the Oscars aren’t until the end of February, so we’ve got another few weeks of hype and speculation and scathing critical analysis. Fun stuff!

But before we get into all that… Gender Matters columnist Akiba Solomon takes down a new Washington Post report that seeks to dissect (in Akiba’s words) “Blackus Womanamina Americanus,” and yet manages to ignore every structural force that might make a black woman’s life the way it is. The Washington Post concludes that black women haven’t defined themselves. Akiba concludes differently: