The linguist/conservative pundit John McWhorter and playwright/actress/mimic Sarah Jones did a great segment last year on Studio 360 called ‘Sounding Black’ that dealt with Barack Obama’s strategically deployed ‘blaccent’ — and what it suggested about our perceptions of race and class. JONES: Just like Barack Obama, I am a person of mixed-race heritage. But, I Read More
The Field Negro, on Michelle Obama’s recent comments that she was teased for speaking like a white girl: First, there is no such thing. Either you speak clearly or you don’t. … people have accents, and we all speak in different ways.The important thing is that we speak well, and in a way that can Read More
John Hope Franklin died today at age 94. I met him years ago at a conference on race at Stanford. I don’t remember much about it, other than my father being really excited to be in the man’s presence. It wasn’t until later that I understood how important he was to legitimizing the study of Read More
John Hope Franklin died today at age 94. I met him years ago at a conference on race at Stanford. I don’t remember much about it, other than my father being really excited to be in the man’s presence. It wasn’t until later that I understood how important he was to legitimizing the study of Read More
Atul Gawande asks: what’s the difference between solitary confinement and torture? “This is going to be a piece of cake,” Dellelo recalls thinking when the door closed behind him. Whereas many American supermax prisoners—and most P.O.W.s and hostages—have no idea when they might get out, he knew exactly how long he was going to be Read More
Might be Somalia: Somalia won independence in 1960, but it quickly became a Cold War pawn, prized for its strategic location in the Horn of Africa, where Africa and Asia nearly touch. First it was the Soviets who pumped in weapons, then the United States. A poor, mostly illiterate, mainly nomadic country became a towering Read More
Kiana is right to be unnerved by Michael Sokolove’s story on Allonzo Trier, a 13-year-old hoops prodigy who is currently the No. 1-ranked seventh grader in the country. He and his mother have made it their mission to make him a pro, and they spend much of their time trying to refine his game, being Read More
(x-posted from False Hustle) I swear — probably a bad choice of verb – that I’m not picking on The Church today. But this picture over at The Daily Dish – labeled “The Pope’s Message to Africa” — quite obviously caught my attention. Background: Ahead of his first trip to Africa, The Pope said the Read More
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