Monday One of my conservative readers wrote me recently asking me how I felt about leftist insistence that Virginia governor Ralph Northam resign for having posted a racist picture in his medical school yearbook years ago. After all, hasn’t Northam lived a fairly exemplary life since then? The reader also sent me a Quillette article […]
Tag Archives: Oroonoko
Caution against Purity Policing
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, Henry Fielding, Merchant of Venice, purity policing, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Lit for Handling a College’s Race Problems
After a series of arson fires and racist incidents, I turned to works in each of my courses to address the situation. In Intro to Lit, Lucille Clifton’s poetry; in Early British Literature survey, Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko”; in British Fantasy, “Perdido Street Station.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "wishes for sons", Aphra Behn, China Miéville, college life, Lucille Clifton, Perdido Street Station, race tension, racism, St. Mary's College of Maryland Comments closed
The Minefield of Talking about Race
More thoughts on how to address difficult questions of race, again with the help of Aphra Behn.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, Jonathan Chait, Race, race conversations, Ta-Nehisi Coates Comments closed
Race Disagreements amongst Friends
The intricacies of the debate between Chait and Coates on the culture of poverty can be sorted out by applying Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, culture of poverty, Jonathan Chait, politics, racism, Ta-Nehisi Coates Comments closed
Behn & Friendships across Race Lines
Recalling an interracial friendship from my days in my newly integrated high school, I turn to Aprha Behn’s “Oroonoko” to understand why such friendships are so difficult, even for the best intentioned people.
How Racism Sullies Everything
If race has been the subject of these past two weeks of posting it is because, as a Sherrilyn Ifil article notes in the on-line publication Root, we are having a hard time talking about race this summer, what with the furor over the Sonia Sotomayor nomination and the Henry Louis Gates affair. I haven’t […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, Harper Lee, racism, slavery, To Kill a Mockingbird Comments closed
