Trauma and Race

A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity

On November 23, 2012, a seventeen-year-old African American boy named Jordan Davis was shot and killed at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida. During a verbal exchange with Davis over loud music being played by Davis and three friends, the shooter, a forty-seven-year-old white male named Michael Dunn, pulled out ...
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Trauma and Race

The Reign of One’s Own Desire

An interview with Sheldon George on his book Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity

Daniel Gaztambide (DG): Would you mind unpacking some of the Lacanian concepts you draw on to understand racism and Black identity, such as jouissance and object a, for a general audience? Sheldon George (SG): Jouissance is often translated from the French as pleasure or enjoyment, but it is most properly an excessive pleasure, a destructive ...
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The Reign of One’s Own Desire

Reparations, Atonement, or Both

Why Atonement is a Necessary Step for National Healing

When the first Africans arrived at Point Comfort, VA, they did not suffer the unmitigated brutality of chattel slavery that their progeny would endure; that hadn’t been invented. Some of these first Africans who arrived in 1619 were freed, some intermarried with white indentured servants, and some escaped. For the ...
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Reparations, Atonement, or Both

The “OK” Sign, Black Israelites, and CIA Disguises

Episode 209

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: When cadets flashed the “OK” sign, a gesture that has become a symbol of white power, an investigation by Army and Navy officials ensued. Natalia cited anthropologist Clifford Geertz’ “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. ” Niki recommended ProPublica’s ongoing coverage of ...
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Initiating Inmates

Closing Rikers Island without oversight will expose thousands of transferred inmates to new violence

Let the initiation begin. The Team snatched the bewildered young men from the van and placed them in metal cages.  “Take your shirt with your right hand and pass it backward over your left shoulder,” the officers commanded.  Perplexed, the young men reacted too slowly and quickly received blows to the head.  The officers continued ...
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Initiating Inmates

The New Negro

Exiles on 12th Street, Episode Six

In April, we covered the Civil Rights movement and the fight against racism in “The Fire This Time.” This month, we explore the lasting impact of the Harlem Renaissance in “The New Negro,” as our guests take us on a journey through art, culture, and politics. Author A’Lelia Bundles shares ...
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The Ad Paradox

Writing advertising for a university that doesn’t believe in it

This year marks The New School’s centennial celebration, a paradigm example of that disparity. For October, ads for our “Learn something New” awareness campaign and The Festival of New, a series of events reflecting on our past, made up the majority of advertising in and around Union Square subway station. ...
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The Ad Paradox

Public Thinker: an Interview with Kevin Kruse

Why recent history is still history

Thinking in public demands knowledge, eloquence, and courage. In this interview series, we hear from public scholars about how they found their path and how they communicate to a wide audience. “Historian. Author/editor of White Flight; The New Suburban History; Spaces of the Modern City; Fog of War; One Nation Under ...
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The Negro Leagues and Baseball Memory

Washington D.C.’s first championship team

The erasure of the Grays should not be surprising. It has become easy for most fans of the National Pastime to ignore or overlook the contributions of the Negro Leagues. Often, the Negro Leagues are mentioned as a piece of baseball history, both a reminder of Major League Baseball’s shameful ...
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“This is Our Campaign”

What The Bernie Sanders Campaign Means For Racial Justice

Before a sold-out audience of about 200 attendees of a broad spectrum of age, race, and background, and over 10,000 viewers watching online by livestream, these three black women attempted to clarify why Bernie Sanders -- the 78-year-old white man who has served for nearly three decades as a national ...
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Conflicting Claims

Race, Capitalism & the Current Crisis: Conundrums for Those Who Envisage a Socialist Future

The multiple capitalist crises the U.S. faces today are a result both of the inherent contradictions found within a capitalist social order, and from frictions and contradictions arising out of its articulation with two other systems of domination -- those of patriarchy and white supremacy. These crises have generated extreme ...
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