race
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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…
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The 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…
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Blame 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…
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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…
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“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…
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Where Things Stand
After the VIDA counts in 2010 and 2011, as well as Jennifer Weiner’s count she released on her blog in January 2012, I wanted to see where things stood for writers of color. Race often gets lost in the gender…
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“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…
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A 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.
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Race 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,…
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Touré 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…
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Mis-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…
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An 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…