Media
585 posts
Writing on media at The Rumpus!
Watching Roots in the Age of Trump
...slavery isn’t African-American history, it’s American history.
Black Panther and Strong Women
I saw myself on the big screen—the strong black woman that I am, and the stronger black woman I aspire to become.
Look at How the Bullets Have Missed
I praise everyone I can still touch, their warmth a violent protest against the cold weapons of death.
We Have to Trust Our Punch: A Conversation with Kevin Young
Kevin Young discusses Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, America's relationship to hoaxes, and what we can learn from that relationship.
The Real Fake News
In 2017, newscaster cameos may be the only fact-fiction crossovers for which people have no difficulty keeping the two concepts apart.
No Pressure: Bieber, Blackness, the Cult of Perfection
Bieber is like a prism that reflects back whatever you want to see.
Fidel Castro: The Playboy Comandante
The comandante produced ideological fantasies on a mass scale within the context of the Cold War which led to an exotic, sexy, and happy vision of Cuba.
Watching the World End: A History of The Weather Channel
[A]ll this sensationalism has made The Weather Channel, inadvertently and ever increasingly, the essential television viewing experience of the Anthropocene.
The Lens Magnifies, the Mirror Reflects: What Photos from the Race War Show Us about Ourselves
[Still photos] grab what otherwise might feel too foreign to understand.
The Aura of Baby Einstein, the Child, the Toy
If there is no distinction between show and commercial, ethics and entertainment, what kind of distinctions, if any, exists between her imaginary play, her consumer life, and our reality?