On this year’s 4th of July holiday, many white Americans are feeling their identity encroached upon and their opinions ignored. Especially in the south, many whites feel that the recent focus on removing the confederate flag from public…

Uncertain Humanism and the Water of Whiteness

The Humanist Magazine has devoted its most recent issue to the question of “Do…

Savagery is not descending on Europe. To suggest as much would be a misnomer, a white lie. No, it is colonialism that is once again descending onto the continent. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre concludes his 1961 Preface to Frantz Fanon’s The…

On the Journey to White Shame: MRBlog

The human relations I valued most were held cheap by the world I lived in.

White lesbian Southern novelist and woman of letters Lillian Smith wrote these words(and those that follow in italics) in 1949, the same year my parents were born…

(Originally published for Marginalia Review of Books on September 1, 2015 in our Conversations in Black Series, hosted by me and Dr. Monica R. Miller. Here’s a taste of our conversation with Alexander G. Weheliye, one of the leading theorists of…