In the early Twentieth Century, French sociologist Emile Durkheim broke open the category of religion by separating it from a divine origin and relocating its source in human life itself. Contextualized by his anthropological study of Aboriginal religion, Durkheim’s groundbreaking The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, published in 1912, defined religion as “a unified system of beliefs […]
Read more "Trumpism: A new old religion"As we close out the semester, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have engaged the material that we touched on. Each of the authors brought a new and different understanding of what “white identity” really means. Some of the material was centered around capitalism (Roediger) other pieces were around religion (Perkinson). Others had […]
Read more "The Magic Negro"Liberty late 14c., “free choice, freedom to do as one chooses,” from Old French liberté “freedom, liberty, free will” (14c.), from Latin libertatem (nominative libertas) “freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint; permission,” from liber “free” (see liberal) Freedom Old English freodom “power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;”… […]
Read more "Give Me “Liberty” Not “Freedom”"In White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity, James W. Perkinson provides well-sought background how the white supremacy had come into being in modern history. I have taken the course of the world history, which was written in the western-centric mode, for granted and never imagined the consequences that impacted the socio-economical outcomes in the world […]
Read more "Evangelism in Korea in 1885-1906, A Colonial Project?"Recent YouTube video of a Korean high school girl, Lydia Lee, who is attending Seoul Music High School, singing Adele’s Hello went viral. Her singing video, hit more than 14 million views, was noticed by Ellen DeGeneres for which she invited Lee to her talk show to sing last week. I noticed rowdy Facebook newsfeeds […]
Read more "Mastery of Mimicking: Pure Admiration or Discursive Transcoding?"Is not this the record of present America? Is not this its headlong progress? Are we not coming more and more, day by day, to making the statement “I am white,” the one fundamental tenet of our practical morality? Only when this basic, iron rule is involved is our defense of right nation-wide and prompt. […]
Read more "What Does It Mean to Be White?"Being a white rapper since the early 90s has been a really mixed bag of confusing race politics; I think it gives me a different perspective. Hip-hop is a black art, white supremacy reigns, so what can I do to undermine it even though I have benefited from it? I do end up having a […]
Read more "MC Sole’s “Bad” White Poetry – Accounting for Transgressive Whiteness through Hip Hop"The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. – bell hooks, “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” […]
Read more "What About Latoya? – On the Spectacle of the Other in Nicole Arbour’s “Dear Black People”"Overnight the Negro has been given two frames of reference within which he has had to place himself. His metaphysics, or, less pretentiously, his customs and the sources on which they were based, were wiped out because they were in conflict with a civilization that he did not know and that imposed itself on him. […]
Read more "Historical Agency"
the neoabolitionist 