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Can We See Through Race?

The book Seeing Through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography, by Martin A. Berger explores the dual role of Civil Rights Movement photojournalism in promoting and limiting the possibility of civil rights reform in the 1960s.

Berger argues that photos of civil rights protest – the unforgettable images of Bull Connor using attack dogs and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, for instance – too often told the story of the movement in terms that reduced black Southerners to one-dimensional victims.

Photos of white-on-black violence shamed Northern whites. But, those photos didn’t make them feel guilty, … Read more “Can We See Through Race?”

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Why Don’t We Racially Profile Whites?

A while back I wrote a post called White Identity Politics. In it, I wrote:

Whiteness has a political meaning as much as does Black or Asian or any other racial category. In order to define non-Whites as inferior and deviant, Whites needed to be defined as superior and normal. By claiming the category “normal,” Whites imagined themselves outside the racial paradigm they had created. But, in fact, they were and are at the center of it.

I was trying to make the point that while Whites seem to think of themselves as raceless, they in fact are the … Read more “Why Don’t We Racially Profile Whites?”

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White Identity Politics

My recent post, Blackness is the Fulcrum struck a nerve. It landed me on Blacking It Up, a radio show hosted by L. Joy Williams and Elon James White as the Asian man who opposes anti-Black racism. It was a valiant but sad performance. To all of you I’m supposed to be representing, I apologize in advance for the two shows I’m on this week. If you follow @nakagawascot I’ll tweet you the pod casts.

I’ve been busy. But busy or not, I can’t help making trouble and I’m guessing this post will stir some up.

Here goes –… Read more “White Identity Politics”