Author: jb

James Baldwin – Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone

Though Baldwin wrote about his own life a lot, Baldwin's 1968 novel Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone seems like the closest he came to writing a full-length autobiography.  It's written in the first person and as his biographer David Leeming notes, a lot of the micro- and macro-level details of protagonist Leo Proudhammer's … Continue reading James Baldwin – Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone →

What I’ve Learned Bringing Kendrick Lamar into my Classroom

[This post is part of a broader project I'm calling "Pop Culture Pedagogy" where I write about ways pop culture finds its way into my classroom]   When Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize today, I think more than a few people probably dismissed it as somehow the committee trying to be trendy but that … Continue reading What I’ve Learned Bringing Kendrick Lamar into my Classroom →

Ain’t Nothin’ New – Or – James Baldwin – Blues for Mister Charlie

[I put the James Baldwin reading project on hold for a while, but it's back.] In one of my classes, we just finished an almost quarter-long exploration of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly.  One of the coolest things about studying this album with my students is that, for whatever reason, kids often share music with … Continue reading Ain’t Nothin’ New – Or – James Baldwin – Blues for Mister Charlie →

From Slavery to Freedom – or – Why White People Need to Learn from Black History

I know your countrymen do not agree with me here and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine, but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit … Continue reading From Slavery to Freedom – or – Why White People Need to Learn from Black History →

What is White Supremacy? Does it Exist? One try at explaining these questions

 Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, … Continue reading What is White Supremacy? Does it Exist? One try at explaining these questions →

The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics – George Lipsitz

Created by politics, culture, and consciousness, our possessive investment in whiteness can be altered by those same processes, but only if we face the hard facts openly and honestly and admit that whiteness is a matter of interests as well as attitudes, that it has more to with property than with pigment. It's often said … Continue reading The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics – George Lipsitz →

We Were Eight Years in Power: American Tragedy – Ta-Nehisi Coates

I have read 40 books this year.  This one was the best.  You should read it. If you are a White liberal and you think you know what "identity politics" means and are very clear about why you think it's a "distraction" from "more pressing economic concerns," I implore you, as one who used to … Continue reading We Were Eight Years in Power: American Tragedy – Ta-Nehisi Coates →