Louisiana Rien Fertel explores the complex history of New Orleans’ flambeaux — the men who carry the torches that light the way for Mardi Gras parades — in Oxford American.
race
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Keepers of the Light
New Orleans’s complicated history with the Mardi Gras flambeaux — the (usually black) torch carriers who, for years, lit the way for the festival’s (usually white) parades.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Most Listable City
Alex Gordon surveys 150 years of writing about Pittsburgh and whether or not this type of boosterish frivolity helps the city’s residents — specifically people of color
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Black Men Terrified
Frederick McKindra examines how James DeMonaco’s The Purge and Jordan Peele’s Get Out turn the the horror genre’s racial dynamics upside down.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
England’s Fears and Shifting Identity
Tim Burrows travels from London to the English countryside to talk with regular folks about the changing UK, race, immigration and the reasons behind Brexit.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Who and what are we really commemorating on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? Ijeoma Oluo unpacks the myriad ways Dr. King’s story has been softened and re-written to weaken black activism and bolster white supremacy.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Exploitation Of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy By White Supremacy
“The Martin Luther King Jr. that we celebrate every year is no longer a man or a movement. The annual holiday is no longer a remembrance.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Meltdown of the Phantom Snowflakes
“When I fight back, though, when I continue to write about injustice in the face of the bullying campaigns that are daily life for every female activist I have met, precisely when I feel strongest—that’s when I’m told I’m weak. A crybaby. Special snowflake. Whiner… As politics turn darker, these slurs have become weaponized. Something […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Quotes
‘My Name Is Emily, and I’m a White Supremacist.’
“The very foundations of my way of life are in white supremacy, and the list of microaggressions I have committed, and will no doubt continue to commit in spite of my “good intentions” for as long as I’m alive, is virtually endless.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
An Uncomfortable Truth
Nikole Hannah-Jones explores the rhetoric of Donald Trumps’s appeals to black voters and calls on the Democratic Party to stop taking Black support for granted.