I’m going to be teaching Cornel West’s Race Matters next year, to first year students, and was compiling some links for my colleagues, but thought you all might appreciate them too:
- To start, here’s the man himself, Nate Silver, on the Prop 8 vote and black voters that clarifies some of the issues about black voters and LGBT issues: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html
- & Here’s a tidier summation of what Nate Silver was pointing out: http://trainwreckpolitics.com/2008/11/12/nate-silver-at-538-black-voters-are-not-to-blame-for-prop-8/
Here are a couple of good link for alternative writers on race.These are my regular reads.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic is often amazingly great: http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/
- Abagond writes short posts & does a lot of interesting work on racism & anti-racism, too. Here’s a search of Abagond’s blog using the terms racist and racism: http://abagond.wordpress.com/?s=racism%2C+racist
(The “Three Kinds of White Racists” is the best, to me, but might upset people who are not ready to admit to being racist.)
& Abagond talks about the Bechdel Test for race, which is a nice connection to Fun Home (the post explains The Bechdel Test in the first place, too).
- Then there’s Yo, Is This Racist? (which imho, is pretty awesome & funny): http://yoisthisracist.com/
- & Of course there is Tim Wise, who is probably the best known white anti-racist: http://www.timwise.org/
IMHO, most white people are clueless and in denial about their own racism, and like gender discrimination, racism is a problem for all of us – not just black people. So let’s get our act together, shall we?