Traffic Stop Language
Eugenia Rho and her research colleagues have demonstrated in a recent study that the verbal approach of officers during vehicle stops of Black drivers plays a large part in the outcome of those encounters. It’s not really news and confirms what many of us assume, but it’s always good to have empirical data. Rho, a […]
Always Another
At times, you have been asked which prior literary scene you would want to visit. Some expect you to say the Harlem Renaissance, a popular answer to that question. However, you were born in Harlem and don’t picture the locale as that exciting, though the writers are certainly admirable. Your choice has been the post-war […]
Brussels
retreat of petals. I am no longer pardoned by the undivided salt nor the constant bread, nor the tiny church eaten by the ocean rain, nor the coal bitten by the secret foam. I have searched and found, heavily, beneath the earth, among the frightening corpses, a tooth of paled wood limping below the harsh […]
“I Am Always Going to Be a Mouth”: A Witness for Black Women’s Organizing Power by Mudiwa Pettus
During the first two years of the pandemic, my partner, Michael, and I were accorded the safety of working from home. Haphazardly, we converted the living room of our one-bedroom apartment into our shared workspace. Michael had his corner, and I had mine. When we needed distance from each other or privacy, one of us, […]
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) by Mudiwa Pettus
Some of My Favorite CCCC 2023 Moments that Ain’t Got Nothing to Do with the Formal Program 1.) When members of the Black Caucus discussed the tonal semantics of Black people’s pronunciation of the word “liquor” after a kind waiter couldn’t quite understand our request to put our food and wine on separate checks. 2.) […]
Margaret Walker Biography
If you wait twenty years for something, you figure the payoff should be special. It is indeed if you read Maryemma Graham’s massive biography of Margaret Walker, The House Where My Soul Lives. An absolute artist of the archive, Graham has provided a definitive “life” of a major, if not always properly acknowledged, literary and […]
Remembering Petry
A while back I received in the mail an envelope containing a short newspaper article about Ann Petry accompanied by a handwritten note. The sender asked why more students weren’t taught about Petry, and he asked if there were anything I could do about it. My first response is that I could continue teaching her […]
Black Literary Queens
The borough of Queens usually has been an afterthought, if that, in conversations about Black authors and sites of Black literary production. However, Black writers have been emerging from or doing work in Queens for generations. For this Black History Month, I note some of the contributors. I don’t call their work a tradition because, […]
Scorpions in Black or Blue
“I have not seen you in a few days, Semple.” “Been holed up at my nephew’s apartment,” replied Semple as he slid into a familiar seat at the bar. He had me on the Internet.“ “What?” “Yeah, man. You can get a lot and get it quick. I’m trying to catch up with that fancy […]
Kristallnacht
On the anniversary of the beginning of Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish rampage in the Third Reich from November 9-10, 1938, which left hundreds of Jewish institutions destroyed and approximately 30,000 Jewish males on the way to concentration camps, I listened to a highly respected Jewish Studies scholar discuss the history of anti-Semitism. Although hatred of Jews […]
