Tag Archives: racism

Actors of Color in New Tolkien Drama

By Robin Bates | Published: September 7, 2022

While some critics, perhaps revealing their racism, are complaining about actors of color in “Ring of Power,” here’s why the casting is good.

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Serena and Venus Transformed Tennis

By Robin Bates | Published: September 5, 2022

Serena Williams changed tennis, as this Tony Hoagland poem makes clear.

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The Deep Roots of U.S. Race Hatred

By Robin Bates | Published: June 15, 2022

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Water Dancer” describes race dynamics in slave society that still operate today.

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Kesey, Spokesman for Reactionary Men

By Robin Bates | Published: April 18, 2022

“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” anticipates rightwing attacks on women and people of color.

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Iago Resentment Is Destroying America

By Robin Bates | Published: April 10, 2022

The “ressentiment” that drives Iago to destroy Othello is present in our own society and equally destructive.

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Black Poetry–Next on the Right’s List?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 31, 2022

Many iconic African American poems could discomfit certain white audiences. Will the right target those as well as black history?

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Lorde on Our Fury over Racial Killings

By Robin Bates | Published: November 23, 2021

Lorde has a poem examining her anger at Whites killing innocent Blacks. It’s a good caution as the Arbery trial nears its end.

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The Arbery Killers, Today’s Slave Catchers

By Robin Bates | Published: November 22, 2021

The men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery are like the slave catchers in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

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Only What Is Human Can Be Foreign

By Robin Bates | Published: September 27, 2021

Szymborska’s beautiful poem “Psalm” provides the perspective we all need on immigrants at the border.

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