Last week’s release of Black Ice – the memoir of Val James, the first African American to play in the NHL – brought me back to when I was a teenager living in Boston. It was the winter of 1978 – the year…
Last month President Obama welcomed the film Selma into the White House – a first-family showing that, as it happens, occurred a century after the first-ever screening of a movie inside the White House…
At first glance, Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent faux pas – using the word “coloured” to refer to racially minoritised groups – may appear to have absolutely nothing to do with the world of UK higher education…
Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have evolved to allow us to survive and thrive in complex social environments. Accordingly, the behaviors and emotions that help us navigate our social sphere…
The first Iraqis to appear in Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War drama, American Sniper, are a young mother and boy of maybe 12. They are seen from the point of view of the man who will kill them: Chris Kyle, the…
Universities have a long way to go before they become exemplars of ethnic equality and diversity. That’s the thrust of a new report published by race equality think-tank, the Runnymede Trust. As David…
In 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white American writer, underwent medical treatments to change his skin appearance and present himself as a black man. He then traveled through the segregated US south to…
Lawrence Vale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Shomon Shamsuddin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
For decades, public housing stood as the most architecturally visible and politically stigmatized reminder of urban poverty in many American cities. Originally built to accommodate an upwardly mobile segment…
Within the US restaurant industry, blacks are generally considered comparatively poor tippers. One recent survey of roughly 1,000 restaurant servers from across the nation found that 34% thought blacks…
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…
With Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus in the news for the film’s straight-to-Vimeo release, and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight currently in production (see Samuel L. Jackson’s Camera+ page for…
It’s been almost 60 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. became a household name during the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, and some may find it astonishing that, until the recent release of Selma, he’s…
Late in December, I took a phone call from a young woman working for the Department of Social Services. She had called, she said, because the department was checking its database of contacts, so that the…
Whether Bond can be black or not is a debate that has rumbled on past the pre-Christmas Sony hack revelations that Idris Elba was proposed as the next Bond. Kanye West waded in just before the new year…
Director Ridley Scott recently set off a firestorm when he dismissed those who criticized him for casting white actors as every major character in the recently released Exodus: Gods and Kings, while reserving…
The album cover for Michael Jackson’s album Dangerous was painted by American pop-surrealist artist Mark Ryden. In it, he depicts a world in which the boundaries between human and animal, living and dead…
In 1919, Ivy MacKusick, an art student at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, completed a Portrait of a Man in His Shirtsleeves. We know nothing about the man of African descent depicted in this portrait…
Race-related demonstrations, Title IX disputes, affirmative action court cases, same-sex marriage bans. These issues made headlines in all spheres of the media this year. However, thoughtful articles on…
One in three people in Britain describe themselves as being very or a little racially prejudiced, according to a recent British Social Attitudes Survey. How are middle-class black families coping with…
Standing in the social rooms of Robinvale Football Netball Club on presentation night is perhaps like standing in any sports club in regional Australia when their vote count is on. There are the usual…