I could write this post almost entirely with cut and paste, that’s how common this now feels. Gawker released a casting call for a movie about hip-hop group NWA. The call features an explicit race and skin shade hierarchy for the women: SAG OR NON UNION FEMALES – PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR SPECIFIC BREAKDOWN.Read More “Light Skin, Labor and “Straight Out of Compton””
Tag Archives: Cultural Criticism
Allies, Friends, and the Value of Utopian Visions
I am fortunate to claim economist Sandy Darity as a friend and mentor. I asked him once, after a barn burner of an academic lecture on reparations, why in God’s name would he go all in on something that doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening. “That’s what they once said aboutRead More “Allies, Friends, and the Value of Utopian Visions”
Reparations: What the Education Gospel Cannot Fix
I promise you I don’t know Coates from Adam’s cousin Leroy. I stopped attending the Thursday night Black People Meetings ™ ages ago when gas crossed $2 a gallon. But, I know that Coates has written a thing at The Atlantic making the case for reparations. This is good. When I teach my inequality courseRead More “Reparations: What the Education Gospel Cannot Fix”
Here, A Hypocrite Lives: I Probably Get It Wrong On Leslie Jones But I Tried
I want badly to get this right. That, of course, means that there is no way humanly possible for me to get this right. I want to get this right for the usual reasons. I want Twitchy and professional feminists and black nationalists and the identity police and FOX news ambassadors to stay out ofRead More “Here, A Hypocrite Lives: I Probably Get It Wrong On Leslie Jones But I Tried”
Calling the White Man’s Police
I hate calling the white man’s police. As a black woman, I am the keeper of many things. Chief among them is the hope of black men. A black man introduced into the criminal justice system for any violation, no matter how minor becomes a son who cannot care for big momma, a brother whoRead More “Calling the White Man’s Police”
A Nasty Piece of Cornbread: Chait, Coates, and White Progressivism
I once set out to write a book of southern aphorisms. It was going to be a serious treatment of (mostly) black (uniquely) southern “mother wit” as philosophy. Then, grad school and so on and so on. If I were to undertake a project today I would start with a favorite handed down to meRead More “A Nasty Piece of Cornbread: Chait, Coates, and White Progressivism”
Put A Ring or a Diploma on It? Bless Princeton Mom’s Heart
I actually get where Princeton Mom is coming from. I mean, I do teach a class called, “class, status and power” and Princeton Mom may think she’s talking about marriage but I know she’s really talking about class, status, and power. Princeton Mom is Susan Patton. A few months back she wrote a piece encouragingRead More “Put A Ring or a Diploma on It? Bless Princeton Mom’s Heart”
Why We Want To Be White Women
A first-person account of race and yoga is making the social media rounds. In it a self-described thin white woman notices a black woman in yoga class and has an existential crisis about envy, big bodies, and race. It’s one of the oddest autoethnographic attempts I’ve read in some time. The title is sensationalist butRead More “Why We Want To Be White Women”
The New Black Codes
That’s all I’m talking about here on NPR in a discussion of David Brooks’ idyllic moralizing on pot and the harsh reality of petty crimes derailing the life chances of African Americans in this country. I talk about this concept a great deal in my undergraduate classes. I also have a paper making the roundsRead More “The New Black Codes”
Eating in School Cafeterias Isn’t Apartheid and Other Things I Shouldn’t Have to Tell Grown People
There is a troubling pattern of racialized rhetoric to education activism. The latest to come to my attention is from Grant Wiggins, president of Authentic Education. He begins the short post with a definition of apartheid and ends it by making a parallel to teachers having separate eating and bathroom facilities from students. I’m notRead More “Eating in School Cafeterias Isn’t Apartheid and Other Things I Shouldn’t Have to Tell Grown People”