Jessica Chambers got murdered, and what an interesting story it is. No one knows who did it, and everyone’s trying to arm-chair solve the mystery online, and there are more sleuths working on it than residents in Jessica’s hometown. Jessica is the current poster girl for “missing white woman syndrome” and her latest murder(s) are members of a gang, just proof that black men are nothing but thugs, and that black lives don’t matter. Jessica, you see, actually dated black men. In Mississippi, even. So that’s a hot mess. A hot mess of racism in the dirty south made all the worse by the internet’sRead More →

In the 1800s, the Irish were New York City’s “ghetto thugs” and unwelcome “illegal aliens” (ugly words), much the way we think of people of color today. When they were required to defend the North in the Civil War, to risk life and limb for black slaves that most considered subhuman, well, that just added insult to injury. Irish and other impoverished immigrant males in New York City started the Draft Riots in the 1860s to protest. During that time, the New York police force was heavily populated by Irish. By the end of the 19th century, 70% of the New York police force wereRead More →

If you reject the idea of white privilege, please move on, because you will find nothing here to suit your purpose. The flurries of “criming while white” stories merely scratch the surface of illustrating white privilege. These stories just point out a double standard. They don’t show much beneath the surface about the structural racism that support double standards. Consequently, when the hashtags stop trending, our country faces the sad possibility of a memory wipe. White people have the luxury of forgetting. That’s white privilege, the privilege of forgetting and obliviousness. Profiling and police brutality, as overt examples of racial injustice, are tangible and concrete things. AlthoughRead More →

The latest viral police profiling confrontation is a black man, Brandon McKean, getting stopped by a Michigan cop for walking with his hands in his pockets in freezing cold weather. McKean’s video adds another example to the multitude of stories that are coming to white people’s attention about how police profile, harass, and brutalize people of color. What’s different in this case is that the police department defended itself with a counter-video on Facebook, demonstrating that McKean edited his version to make himself appear in a good light.The introduction of new media technology, which started changing the game with videos and Rodney King in 1992,Read More →

At Walgreens pharmacy today a gentleman, late 60s, was called to pick up his prescription. The pharmacy tech was Asian, presumably Vietnamese, presumably named Nguyen, but I didn’t look at his name tag to be certain. When I experience moments like the one, I am consumed with the urge to apologize for my race, which makes me equally stupid. The guy behind the counter was probably just bewildered more than anything. Eventually, though, I couldn’t help but laugh – loud and hard – because the conversation became ludicrous. First, the man asked why “you people” are all named “Nguyen.” The tech didn’t answer. Then, theRead More →

Scandal is a guilty pleasure with its bodice-ripping, twisty-turny Shonda Rhimes storyline. Lauded in many circles as a positive image, Olivia Pope is a familiar tragic trope clad in a power suit. All the blogs say that audiences, particularly women of color, have a love/hate relationship with Olivia Pope, the main character of Scandal, because she’s a two-steps-forward, two-steps-back kinda girl. Olivia Pope is a “fixer” with a heart of gold. She worked on the President’s campaign, helping him earn office. The two fall in epic-level love, and have an ongoing interracial, extramarital affair, enacted physically and sustained emotionally, even when the physical component ceases.Read More →

An aliens and monsters meme floated around Facebook this morning with this annoying cast of images. The meme depicts aliens and monsters in pop culture transforming from ugly and monstrous to attractive and desirous. It asks WTF happened? Here’s my first FB post: “People would rather embrace aliens from outer space than illegal aliens.” My later post: “It’s actually an old pattern from way back when. People who study pop culture say that we had an invasion of alien bug movies when we were afraid the aliens (in this case, Japanese during WW II and Koreans afterward). We’ve been invaded by illegal aliens time andRead More →

Grocery stores are the intersections of life. They are sites of culture, commerce, and exchange where we traffic in power relations, interpersonal connections, and political commitments. They are stages for enacting liberal guilt and way stations for the study of food politics. I have become highly conscious of this complexity while trying to wean myself of my unhealthy addiction to Walmart. I am getting better. Months pass between my visits to that pernicious place. There are few alternatives, however.  Lately the Baton Rouge liberal community developed a deep interest in solving the “food desert” problem. The savings at Walmart are considerable. I force myself toRead More →

In a picture, when a child touches a black president’s hair, representational politics changes the world. In the 90s when academics and television pundits were busily engaged in the culture wars, I believed mastering the politics of representation was revolutionary. Surely, transformative images would en/gender transformative politics, and that social change could come from studying and politicizing media, popular culture, language, and discourse. There had to be some momentous connection between representation in images and representative democracy. In those days, young Turks in English departments fought old white guys about the canon, which entailed fierce battles over ethnic/area studies, women’s studies, and the relative meritsRead More →