Category Archives: Reviews & Commentary

Go to Essays above, then Reviews for a LIST of reviews.

Django Unchained: Revenge Fantasies and Realities

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Richard Guzman

Of course Django Unchained (2012) is your average Quentin Tarantino bloodfest, yet for me the main moment of the film suggests it could have been even bloodier.  In one of the film’s quiet, reflective seconds slave master Calvin Candie (Leonardo … Continue reading →

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Thaddeus and Slocum: Black-White, White-Black

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Richard Guzman

In his great essay “Junior and John Doe,” James Alan McPherson says, “There used to be the basic, if unspoken, assumption that identity in America is almost always a matter of improvisation, a matter of process…and that, given the provisional … Continue reading →

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Not As Divided As We Seem?

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Richard Guzman

Are we, as President Obama said at the memorial for fallen Dallas police officers, “Not as divided as we seem”?  On the one hand, I see more and more whites at protests over police shootings of young black men, and recently … Continue reading →

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