Race
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Tofu Chitlin Circuit presents The A La Carte: Carrot Cake Edition
From The Tofu Chitlin Circuit (a theater conservatory located in the Bronzeville District of Chicago): TONIGHT’s A La Carte (panel discussion) is sure to ruffle some feathers! We’re talking about the newest trend to hit the stage: White directors staging Black plays. Is this valid? Is this fair? Who cares? Let’s talk about it! Featuring…
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Jive on Icon: Daphne Maxwell-Reid
Here’s the original caption that accompanied the above shot: 25 Oct 1967, Evanston, Illinois, USA — Northwestern Homecoming Queen…Daphne Maxwell, 19, of New York, has good reason to flash that bright smile; she was named Northwestern University’s Homecoming Queen October 20th. Daphne, a sophomore who is studying design, is the first Negro ever to be…
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Jive on Icon: Naomi Sims
It was 1967. While “Black is Beautiful” sounded a vigorous call to confront and love our authentic African selves, Naomi became “the first black woman accepted as a beauty in her own right,” as she was later described. Her image of authoritative ebony inspired all women of color to pride. Never had a model so dark-skinned…
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Blackness…Finally Forgivable?
from the Stop Smiling Blog…. A Pugilist’s Pardon, Once Unforgivable Posted on: April 1, 2009 at 1:48 pm // MARGINALIA It’s Jack Johnson, 1 — Scooter Libby, zero. Senator John McCain delivers some straight talk we can believe in with the announcement this week that he is seeking a presidential pardon for the late Jack…
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The History of Gangs in Chicago
A Communiversity Course beginning next week… This course examines the history of gangs in Chicago through the lens of racism and social movements. Rather than explain Chicago’s history of gangs as a one-sided story of criminality, the course looks at how gangs have played political roles in Chicago and have changed in response to local…
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Sonari is Mixed
This is an interview I conducted for Vocalo.org some time ago, in which a Black man (NPR’s Sonari Rhodes Glinton) concedes he is “mixed”: Half African and Half African-American. At first listen, the categorization sounds almost comical, but consider his viewpoint: one major factor in Ethnicity is culture… and no one can argue that Africans…
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I am Not Sidney Poitier
“Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.
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Black Girl: Cult Movie of the Week
(1966, Directed by Sembene Ousmane) If you are unfamiliar with this movie, or Black Francophone film in general, change that…now. Black Girl is the story of a beautiful Senegalese nanny named Diouana (played by Thérèse Mbissine Diop, see above), who joins Robert Fontaine (Monsieur) and Anne-Marie Jelinek (Madame) on their trip to the French Riviera,…
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Book Review: More than just Race
(Norton Press, 2009) According to William Julius Wilson, author of More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (in stores March 2009), “the disproportionate number of low-skilled black males in this country is one of the legacies of historical segregation and discrimination”. This statement cuts cleanly the notion that class-ism is…
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