Category: Communications/Media Studies

  • Maria on Bhowani Junction Archive to Blockbuster 2016-08-11 Maria Kaladeen, Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies University of London The happiness I feel in encountering old movies about dual-heritage characters and communities is inevitably marred by the regurgitation of tired and offensive stereotypes about these individuals. The 1956 film Bhowani Junction, based on John…

  • Othering Obama: Racial Attitudes and Dubious Beliefs about the Nation’s First Black President Sociological Perspectives Volume 57, Number 4 (December 2014) pages 450-469 DOI: 10.1177/0731121414536140 Daniel Tope, Associate Professor of Sociology Florida State University Justin T. Pickett, Assistant Professor School of Criminal Justice State University of New York, Albany Ryon J. Cobb, National Institute on…

  • The Reality Of Imaginary Whiteness African American Intellectual Historical Society (AAIHS) 2016-07-24 Jennifer Patrice Sims, Adjunct Professor of Sociology University of Wisconsin, River Falls In the 1993 satirical musical comedy Robin Hood: Men In Tights, Dave Chappelle plays Ahchoo, the show stealing side kick to Cary Elwes’ Robin Hood. At the end of the movie,…

  • The Myth of White Purity and Narratives That Fed Racism in South Africa The Wire 2016-06-18 Nicky Falkof, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa An apartheid-era sign from South Africa. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. The rhetoric of racial purity is full of suggestive terms like illness, weakening and dilution. These…

  • This book illuminates the racialized nature of twenty-first century Western popular culture by exploring how discourses of race circulate in the Fantasy genre.

  • End of Whiteness: Satanism & Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa Jacana Media March 2016 240 pages 235x155mm Paperback ISBN: 9781431423279 Nicky Falkof, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Satanism and family murder – bizarre responses to fear of change. This book examines the effects that apartheid may…

  • While my first instinct was to celebrate Jesse Williams’ recent Humanitarian Award from BET, my second instinct, which came just seconds later, was to brace myself for the backlash.

  • La Esclava Blanca: The New Telenovela Rewriting Colombia’s History of Slavery AAIHS: African American Intellectual History Society 2016-07-06 Yesenia Barragan Columbia University, New York, New York This is a guest post by Yesenia Barragan, a historian of race, slavery, and emancipation in Colombia, Afro-Latin America, and the Atlantic/Pacific worlds. She recently received her Ph.D. in…

  • Inside Facebook’s Totally Adorable, Kind of Racist Mixed Race Baby Community Broadly 2016-06-21 Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff Thousands of people have signed up to Instagram and Facebook communities to celebrate the beauty of multiracial children. But not everyone is convinced that they have the purest intentions at heart. In a world plagued by racism and prejudice, some…

  • These 2 Ads Might Say Everything About How Global Racism Really Is Multiracial Asian Families: thinking about race, families, children, and the intersection of mixed ID/Asian 2016-06-26 Sharon H. Chang sigh. SIGH. Siiiiiiiiigh. Alright that’s done. I want (pause) — well I don’t want, but feel like I need to show you two TV ads…