Tag
Racism
-
The Historical Paths to and from Wong Kim Ark
“The decision in Wong Kim Ark’s case marked the culmination of a three-year legal battle and reflected two decades of sustained efforts to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of Chinese immigrants following the Fourteenth Amendment.”
-
The Year of Black Memoir
My first week as a college freshman, in 1990, I sat in W. L. Harkness Hall and listened to Professor Robert Stepto lecture on African American literature. He began with the slave narratives, in particular the one by the man referred to as the father of African American literature, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Professor Stepto…
-
Welcome, Now Keep Out
At first blush, the title of T. Geronimo Johnson’s second novel, Welcome to Braggsville, tempts us with the suggestion of hospitality. Might we be invited into this charming fictional Georgia town, population 712? There we meet D’aron Davenport, a present-day high school senior who has won a scholarship to attend the University of California, Berkeley.…
-
Suffragettes Take Hollywood
An industrial laundry in 1912 London, the steam infusing the air, the sweat on the workers’ faces so vivid the viewer herself feels the heat. These laundries were not only literal sweatshops; they also surrounded workers with burning toxic lye. This opening scene in Sarah Gavron’s new film, Suffragette, is as powerful as any that…
-
Bond? James Bond?
Just as no prophet is recognized in his own country, James Bond always incarnates to cries that he is not James Bond. Sean Connery, in the view of Ian Fleming, was not Bond but rather “an overgrown stunt-man,” though Fleming would turn heel and revise Bond’s ancestry to match Connery’s. George Lazenby objected as Bond that he…
-
Reduction and Relief
In 2015, the conceptual writing movement came under fire in a very public way. Kenneth Goldsmith and Vanessa Place, two of conceptual writing’s most prominent figures, drew sharp criticism from the larger poetic community—and later, major media outlets—for producing work that was icky and insensitive at best, downright racist at worst. Many writers and groups…
-
Harper Lee’s Bad Form
Even if, like the Paris Review’s “Daily” blog, you’ve been keeping your exquisitely curated cultural world a “Go Set a Watchman–free space,” you must have heard by now: Harper Lee’s novel sucks.1 Just four days after publication, the Toronto Star concluded that “consensus has already formed among critics: Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman is…
-
Diversity Doublespeak
Goldman Sachs values many things—money most of all—but you might be glad to hear that it also values diversity. “We strive for excellence,” they tell their clients and potential employees. “To achieve it, we must have the best people, and the best people are drawn from the broadest pool of applicants.” Goldman is not alone.…
-
Beyond Neoliberalism
Most of the people I know are constantly seeking self-improvement. Not spiritual enlightenment or knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but the kind of self-improvement that promises career advancement, celebrity, or money. They view their life as a project that must be carefully managed. They worry about how many people follow them on Twitter, if their love…
