Category Archives: Social Change
Against Pure Purity – Part 1
I gave a version of this essay as a talk at a philosophy & religion conference in Kolkata, India, August 2002. Re-reading some literary criticism I had published 20 years earlier in the Virginia Quarterly, I sought to apply new ideas about Indian novelist Raja Rao … Continue reading
William Attaway: Banana Boats and Civil Rights
One of the most versatile black writers in American history, William Attaway wrote poems, stories, plays, music, and scripts for radio, television, and film. With the appearance of his first novel Let Me Breathe Thunder in 1939, and especially Blood … Continue reading
Posted in Black Writers, Social Change
Tagged Addison Gayle, Arthur Loving, Banana Boat Song (Day-O), Blood on the Forge, Civil Wrights, Harry Belafonte, Let Me Breathe Thunder, Martin Luther King Jr., miscegenation, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Robert Bone, The Colgate Hour, William Attaway
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“Race aside…” and the Limits of American Law
For many reasons this comment has stuck with me most in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s aquital in Trayvon Martin’s death: “Michael Vick got two and a half years for dog fighting. George Zimmerman gets nothing for his part in … Continue reading →