On Loitering
In Charles Moore’s iconic black-and-white photograph, Coretta looks on stoically, lips parted, hands clasped in front as her husband, Martin Luther King, has his right arm bent behind his back by a police officer in a tall hat.
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Posts Tagged: race
“I’m Black. And I’m Gay.”
More than a few people have questioned, chafed, and commented on Collins’ decision to identify himself as a black gay man — rather than simply as a gay man. And that’s where I step into the ring.
At BuzzFeed, Saeed Jones writes about the importance of race as a factor in NBA player Jason Collins’s coming out.
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The Sacred and the Profane
There is a total silence in the West on India’s culture of dissenting women in the face of severe patriarchy and authoritarianism. It doesn’t quite fit, does it, into the dichotomy carved out for Indian women by Americans and the British…
...moreGet Involved With A Blog About “Raising Good Citizens”
Do you have something to say about race and parenting and youth?
Racialicious’s sister site Love Isn’t Enough is looking for writers, editors, and more!
Details here.
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Yellow Peril and the American Dream
We are terrified of racial guilt. But when we’re too afraid to actually deal with what’s happening in the world, to acknowledge our responsibility or what’s at stake, we will be doomed to miss the point over and over again.
...moreDrake’s East African Girl
Previously, we linked to a Feminist Wire post about being a black fan of a white musician who has said racist things. They have another great post up about race and music fandom, this one by Safy-Hallan Farah:
...moreFor a lot of black men like Drake, it’s way less insidious.
Race, Class, and Indie Rock Music
No teenager wants to listen to their parents’ music. For Martin Douglas, that music was hip-hop, so he gravitated toward the world of grunge and indie rock.
The only problem: that world is very white, and Douglas is black.
In an astute essay titled “The Only Black Guy at the Indie Rock Show” after a Cocker Spaniels tune, Douglas explores what it was like to be “an outsider among the outsiders”—and what self-segregation along music-genre lines means for our culture at large.
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Indian River
In Florida there is an Indian River that flows through a swamp in the northern half of the state. It behaves nothing like a river at all—instead it commingles with the land to make a land-water hybrid, which is what much of Florida feels like anyway.
...moreFollowup: Beyond Dora
In response to the New York Times‘ article about the lack of Latino characters in children’s literature, Aurora Anaya-Cerda, owner of East Harlem bookstore La Casa Azul, compiled a list of books that do feature Latinos.
They range from elementary-level storybooks to young-adult novels, and they’re a great place to start if you’re looking for stories about and for underrepresented young readers.
...moreWhen Dora the Explorer is Not Enough
...moreLike many of his third-grade classmates, Mario Cortez-Pacheco likes reading the “Magic Tree House” series, about a brother and a sister who take adventurous trips back in time. He also loves the popular “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” graphic novels. But Mario, 8, has noticed something about these and many of the other books he encounters in his classroom at Bayard Taylor Elementary here: most of the main characters are white.
Sleep Song, The Poetic Epilogue to War, Cancelled
Sleep Song, the third installment of Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd’s poetic performances that showcase stories about soldiers of color in wars, had its Harlem Stage show cancelled because its Iraqi performers were denied visas.
At Colorlines, Seth Freed Wessler discusses the show and how “navigating the space of war does not end when war ends.
...moreThe Little Tolls and Pitfalls of Modern American Racism
Abigail Fisher, a 22-year old white girl, a graduate of LSU, just pleaded to the Supreme court that the University of Texas rejected her four years ago because of affirmative action.
UT says they’d have rejected her no matter her race; regardless, her suit might lead the Supreme Court to forbid the practice.
...moreBlame Game
At Clutch, Evette Dionne writes an open letter to Abigail Fisher, the young woman whose case against the University of Texas is currently being heard by the Supreme Court.
Fisher claims that her whiteness was held against her, leading to the rejection of her college application.
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I Don’t See You
When I was younger, through the grace of a small business loan, my father started his own grocery store on the East Side of Waterloo. As I grew up, I eventually learned what the West and East sides of town meant.
...more“You Are Your Lover’s Kink”
In writing about the “complexities of desire, objectification and fetishization,” Vivienne Chen gives the Rumpus some love.
Chen quotes Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott — who argues that “there is no bad reason to love a person”– and also links to “Dear Sugar #89: The Thing That Turns You On.”
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Where Things Stand
“What It’s Like to be a Problem”
At The Nation, Melissa Harris-Perry breaks down the wider political context surrounding the Trayvon Martin killing, outlining the historical and contemporary reality in which it is “acceptable to presume the guilt” of black bodies.
“Liberal democracy—based on commitment to individual liberty and dignity—does not exist if the government legislates against particular bodies in public spaces, as it did during Jim Crow, or when it is complicit in the violent policing of those bodies by other citizens, as in the Trayvon Martin slaying.”
...moreA Place Where We Are Everything
Oftentimes when having difficult conversations about complex topics, certain kinds of people (the small-minded, feeble-minded, profoundly ignorant, etc.) will try to derail the conversation.
...moreRace and Redistricting
The Nation explains how the GOP is resegregating the South with its infuriating redistricting campaign.
“The GOP’s long-term goal is to enshrine a system of racially polarized voting that will make it harder for Democrats to win races on local, state, federal and presidential levels.
...moreTouré Interview
“Post-racial suggests a world where race does not exist and racism does not exist, and it’s a completely ridiculous term…With post-Blackness, what I’m talking about is a conception of Blackness where the identity options are infinite. So, we’re not saying THIS is what it is to be Black.”
That is Touré conversing with Galleycat about his new book Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?
...moreMis-Writing Race Is a Failure of the Imagination
In February at the AWP Conference in Washington D.C., Claudia Rankine gave a talk about Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Change.”
Afterward, she posted a call for responses to the conversation that started at AWP, and today she posted those responses here.
...moreAn Open Letter from Claudia Rankine
Editor’s note: If you want some background on this, you can go to Claudia Rankine’s site and click on the “AWP” link.
Dear friends,
As many of you know I responded to Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Change” at AWP. I also solicited from Tony a response to my response.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell wants stand-up comedy to be seen as an art form enjoyed by hip, educated people. He’s on a mission to raise the IQ and literacy of comedy audiences
The Rumpus Original Combo with Danzy Senna
“We are all students of memory. Each of us has our own truth to tell…”
The Rumpus Original Combo: Colson Whitehead
A review of Sag Harbor, followed by an interview with Colson Whitehead—or, as we like to call this literary twofer: The Rumpus Original Combo.
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