The Fear of Bare, Naked Ladies’ Faces
The mask, like the veil, is seen by the anxious West as concealing a racialized female subject in need of liberation from a backward culture.
Walking the Race Line on the Train Line
Investigators never reached a conclusion about the death of Pullman porter J. H. Wilkins, but his killing revealed much about the dangers of his profession.
Remembering the Rumble in the Jungle
The 1974 Rumble in the Jungle was freighted with symbolism regarding American racial politics and the pan-African struggle in the context of the Cold War.
Painting Race
The construction and expression of race by skin color literally became visible in Western art in the eighteenth century.
How Keanu Reeves Radically Rescripts Race
Reeves’s career showcases his transnational mobility as well as a representational flexibility granted by the melding of races, ethnicities, and cultures.
It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
Rock and R&B have been considered separate genres for decades. But why?
Parents’ Rights, Sex, and Race in 1970s Florida
Save Our Children is remembered as an effort to keep gay people out of public life. But it was also rooted in the movement against school integration.
The Meaning of Tanning
The popularity of tanning rose in the early twentieth century, when bronzed skin signaled a life of leisure, not labor.
A Colorblind Compromise?
“Colorblindness,” an ideology that denies that race is an organizing principle of the nation’s structural order, reaches back to the drafting of the US Constitution.
Race, Rock, and Breaking Barriers
The rock music industry brought more than a little racism to the radio, but a few artists pushed beyond the boundaries imposed by white audiences.