Tag: Slate

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Santa, Jesus, and All Those Other White Guys: Why “Reality” is No Barrier to Identity

Santa and Jesus cartoon

If you haven’t already heard, the latest news from FOX news correspondent Megyn Kelly is that Santa Claus must be a white man.  Kelly’s remark was prompted by an article written by Slate journalist Aisha Harris, wherein Harris pointed out how Santa’s constant depiction as a white man is a particularly powerful and, to many children in particular, damaging example of white normativity.  After speaking to a group of panelists about various facets of the issue, Kelly reassured the children of America that Santa (and Jesus, too) are white.  How do we know these things?  One of Kelly’s panelists remarked that Santa is based on none other than St. Nicholas, a white,Greek bishop.  In a equally problematic characterization, Jesus’ whiteness was claimed as a self-evident fact of history. Continue reading “Santa, Jesus, and All Those Other White Guys: Why “Reality” is No Barrier to Identity”

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Trainwreck-spotting: How We Insist on Not Working on the Railroad and Instead Tie Ourselves to the Tracks

Stressed scholar

A few days ago, my Facebook feed lit up with various threads all linking to the latest academic critique of the academy.  The discussions that afternoon amounted mostly to well-intentioned and kindly commiseration based on the various levels of dissatisfaction among my scholarly nears and dears.  Now, the fact that we were all chatting on our computers through Facebook in the middle of a weekday (myself sipping hot tea in the process) is not unimportant.  But I’ll come back to that after telling you about the piece. Continue reading “Trainwreck-spotting: How We Insist on Not Working on the Railroad and Instead Tie Ourselves to the Tracks”