Category: United States

  • Outspoken about Ferguson, Jesse Williams may be this generation’s Harry Belafonte The Washington Post 2014-08-20 Soraya Nadia McDonald Harry Belafonte, left. (NBC via AP) Jesse Williams, right. (Christian Alminana/AP) There are many ways to get celebrity activism wrong when it comes to a situation like the one that has emerged in Ferguson, Mo. Appearing to…

  • Who’s Passing for Who? Genius 2014-12-22 (Originally written in 1956) Langston Hughes (1902-1967) In this short story, written in 1956, Hughes plays with the idea of race as a social construct. Considering the American “one-drop rule,” which meant if you had at least 1/33 African ancestry you were black, the narrator is puzzled by whether…

  • Meet Afro-Latina Trailblazer, Crystal Roman, Founder of The Black Latina Movement Boriqua Chicks: A Fresh, Urban, Afro-Latina Perspective 2014-11-19 Crystal Shaniece Roman, CEO & Founder of The Black Latina Movement, LLC has used her personal experience with identity to fuel several creative projects that recognize and celebrate Black Latinas. From theatrical productions to a web series,…

  • Sleeping with the enemy Sick Chickens: A blog for enthusiasts of American history and politics 2014-12-23 James Owen Heath, PhD Candidate University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom I have never been struck by the intelligence of Jon Stewart’s remarks in the past but I have to agree with him that it is indeed possible to…

  • Mixed: Race cannot be invisible The Daily of the University of Washington 2012-10-27 Hayat Norimine For most of my life, I was opposed to the concept of “diversity.” Half-Japanese, half-Syrian, I was the definition of racially diverse, but I also loathed being labeled. I thought diversity was difficult to define. I thought race alone was…

  • White? Black? A Murky Distinction Grows Still Murkier The New York Times 2014-12-24 Carl Zimmer In 1924, the State of Virginia attempted to define what it means to be white. The state’s Racial Integrity Act, which barred marriages between whites and people of other races, defined whites as people “whose blood is entirely white, having…

  • Why I Passed For White The Archipelago: Stories about community, identity, and the ongoing quest to belong. Medium 2014-12-19 Shawna Ayoub Ainslie I erased my own heritage to feel safe. I hope to teach my children not to do the same. When I was 16, I started letting people believe that I was white. In…

  • Chowan Discovery Group, Marvin T. Jones Backintyme.biz Blog Talk Radio 2014-12-20 Stacey Webb, Host Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director Chowan Discovery Group Author & Historian Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director & owner of Marvin T. Jones and Associates, specializing in corporate communications photography and photographic design. His love of the community of his birth led…

  • Lacey Schwartz came to terms with her true racial identity in ‘Little White Lie’ The New York Daily News 2014-11-30 Justin Rocket Silverman, Senior Features Writer Documentary film chronicles how she grew up believing she was a white Jewish girl and then learned her biological father was black Lacey Schwartz didn’t know she was black…

  • CNN’s Candy Crowley interviews President Barack Obama Cable News Network (CNN) 2014-12-21 For his last interview of the year, President Obama sat down, exclusively, with CNN’s Candy Crowley to discuss North Korea’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, normalizing relations with Cuba, Russia, Iran, race relations in America and Guantanamo Bay. The interview aired Sunday, December 21st,…