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The Racial Politics of X-Men

The X-Men franchise draws deliberate parallels between the oppression of mutants and that of other marginalized groups. What does it have to teach us about our own culture’s racial history and prejudices?

I know the Oscars happened a week ago, but I’m still nagged by some of the larger implications of the event. The general controversy has been covered here and elsewhere. What I would like to do is highlight the limited scope of people of color throughout the history of the Academy Awards. My intent is [...]

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What do you do when who you are is a very difficult, but very valuable, way to be? I went to a party in North Carolina last November to celebrate the 80th birthday of the widow of a black former sharecropper. She had raised 13 children after her husband died almost 40 years ago. I [...]

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Don’t rush for David Mamet’s Race

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  Crossposted from Colorlines Magazine Web Exclusive With a title as bold as Race, I was prepared for this play to go where no performance had before. Director David Mamet described his production as “a play about lies,” including the hidden truth that “there has always been, at the very least, a little bit of [...]

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“Clarity” is one of my favorite John Mayer songs, and given the troubling comments in his forthcoming interview with Playboy Magazine, a little clarity is what we all need.  Mayer’s broad cross-over appeal has been construed by some as a “hood pass.” Laudably if inelegantly, he rejects such a notion:  “If I really had a [...]

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Avatar’s racial politics are more complex than its critics claim. But the film has some noteworthy sociopolitical flaws, and these flaws also deserve some attention.

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Originally posted on Between The Lines in Psychology Today. Avatar is so visually stunning it seems almost a shame to break it down and analyze the micro components. I saw it in 3-D, and a day later, I still recall the sensation of being surrounded by grasses and ferns in the jungle and ducking my [...]

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After seeing the movie with the same title, I will never think of Chante Moore’s chart topping 1990’s song, “Precious,” quite the same, ever again. The movie Precious left me feeling deeply wounded, confused and horrified that there are actually fellow citizens among us who live lives similar to the film, every day of their [...]

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I always take a good look around me before any movie starts.  The night I went to see Precious, I saw friends, lovers, mother-daughter looking duos.  I saw a lot of women – maybe 50% women of color, of those mostly Black, and several there alone like me.  When the previews finally ended and the [...]

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Seriously, where to begin? If by the end of the movie the “Precious” character seems to have wrested a measure of triumph in the face of hideous abuse that has degraded the entire course of her short life; a positive HIV diagnosis; two little kids she must find a way to care for, one with [...]

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