Tag: New York Times

  • “People would call me mulatto all the time. My dad was like: “Don’t let people call you that. Say that you’re mixed. Say that you’re biracial.” My parents were really careful with me. They were clear that you can’t separate out the two sides. You’d be denying half of yourself if you did.” —Amber Gray…

  • Amber Gray on ‘An Octoroon,’ at Soho Rep

  • Old Times There Are Not Forgotten The New York Times 2014-05-04 Ben Brantley, Chief Theater Critic ‘An Octoroon,’ a Slave-Era Tale at Soho Rep Some people are paralyzed by self-consciousness. The playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is inspired, energized and perhaps even set free by it. You could say that he transforms self-consciousness into art, except then…

  • ‘A Chosen Exile,’ by Allyson Hobbs [Senna Review] The New York Times Sunday Book Review 2014-11-21 Danzy Senna A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life By Allyson Hobbs; Illustrated. 382 pp. Harvard University Press. $29.95. One of the best birthday presents anybody ever gave me was a “calling card” by the…

  • The Case for Black With a Capital B The New York Times 2014-11-18 Lori L. Tharps, Associate Professor of Journalism Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania PHILADELPHIA — I WAS sitting in my office at Temple University when I overheard an exchange between a colleague and his student. The student had come to see her professor to…

  • ‘Empire of Sin,’ by Gary Krist The New York Times Sunday Book Review 2014-11-06 Walter Isaacson, President and CEO Aspen Institute Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans By Gary Krist; Illustrated. 416 pp. Crown Publishers. $26. When Tom Anderson’s saloon opened in 1901, at the…

  • ‘William Wells Brown,’ by Ezra Greenspan The New York Times Sunday Book Review 2014-11-14 Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita Princeton University Greenspan, Ezra, William Wells Brown: An African American Life (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014) If the publishing industry reflects the American zeitgeist, things have changed when it…

  • This is the first in a series of interviews with philosophers on race that I am conducting for The Stone. This week’s conversation is with Naomi Zack, a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon and the author of “The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality After the History of Philosophy.” The interview was…

  • Blacks, Obama and the Election The New York Times 2014-11-02 Charles M. Blow, Visual Op-Ed columnist President Obama’s name won’t be on any ballots Tuesday, but he will most certainly be on them in spirit — a fact that many Republicans are trumpeting and some Democrats are hoping to downplay. The president is not particularly…

  • Negro? Prieto? Moreno? A Question of Identity for Black Mexicans The New York Times 2014-10-25 Randal C. Archibold, Bureau Chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean JOSÉ MARÍA MORELOS, Mexico — Hernán Reyes calls himself “negro” — black — plain and simple. After some thought, Elda Mayren decides she is “Afromexicana,” or African-Mexican. Candido…