Racial Terminology In the United States

The conversation in class yesterday got me thinking. Someone mentioned that whites are now more likely to introduce or identify themselves as a hyphenated American (German-American or Italian-American) than they are to just say that they are white. Then another student mentioned that this might be true within a certain context. White people might be [...]

A Nation of Cowards

In the conclusion of her book, Artificial Africas, Ruth Mayer references James Baldwin. One of Baldwin’s main claims is that “being black in the United States differs from being black in Europe.” He attributes this difference to the different historical context of race and race relations on each continent.  This argument seems to tie in [...]

White and the IAT

Richard Dyer’s essay: White, reminded me of a test given in my high school that was meant to determine how “racist” you were. The test was distributed online and asked test takers to categorize the pictures that appeared on the screen as either good or bad.
Test takers were also given a picture of a black [...]

Amistad

Looking back on Amistad, there was one scene that particularly stood out to me, especially after reading Richard Dyer’s “White.” It starts around 00:22:50, where the Africans are being walked through the town and they see a black man (whom I believe is a slave?) driving a horse carriage. One of the Africans calls out [...]