I have been on hiatus from blogging for some time, mainly due to two factors. First, I launched a public anthropology podcast, Anthropologist on the Street (huzzah!), which has been a fabulous excuse to spend hours talking to brilliant, and often funny, anthropologists and to force them to explain in plain English why their work is important. It’s like free college, but with fewer exams and hangovers. The second reason is because I recently discovered the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Eight books and 7500 pages later, I popped my head up to observe that my children had outgrown all their clothes and had resorted to eating grass, as mommy hadn’t bought groceries because MOMMY WAS READING. After feeding the darlings and reenrolling them in school, I dragged my husband into watching … [Read more...]
Turning Heterosexual Pride Day into Gratitude Day
Are you a heterosexual? Feeling discriminated against by a persecuted minority? Perhaps we should take a moment to be grateful for the ways being heterosexual makes life easier, even when we don't recognize it. In honor of the recent call for #HeterosexualPrideDay, I’ve compiled a list of ten benefits you, too, can enjoy from being heterosexual: Your relationships are depicted in complex, varied, and approving ways in all mainstream RomComs. Actually, pretty much all mainstream movies ever made. The government sanctions your relationships with easy to use marriage forms and rewarding tax breaks. Your ability to adopt is not hindered by your sexuality. There is a 0% threat that you will be violently targeted for being heterosexual. Magazines, comic books, and the vast, … [Read more...]
For the Love of Us All, No More Deplorables, Snowflakes, or Nasty Women
8 Labels I Never Want to Hear Again There are several words that have gained in popularity over the last few years that I don’t ever want to hear again: Deplorables, snowflakes, libtards, nasty women, fly-over states, urban elite, hillbilly, and liberal bubble, to name a few. These are not words we use to describe ourselves, they are words we stab at others like weapons. These are not words that explain our differences, they are words that reduce us to our differences. It is not difference that divides us, it is our contempt for difference. We can be connected to one another, despite (or because of) our differences, but the minute you start curling your lip at who someone is, the connection is over. Words like snowflakes and deplorables are labels that signal that we aren’t … [Read more...]
Casual Racism and the Problem of White Identity
My family is super white. We love brunch at IKEA, we have varying relationships with rhythm, and we feel slightly guilty about everything. Aside from our penchant for recording artists like Taylor Swift and John Mayer, however, our whiteness is hard to define. It is the great unmarked ethnicity, looming large but vague over more discernible ethnic identities. It is the lurking nature of white identity that makes it so oblivious to the oppressions and discriminations faced by other races. It’s what makes it so easy for us to inadvertently perpetuate them. And it’s what often pushes us in dangerous directions when we seek to define and celebrate whiteness. Indeed, the greatest sign of our whiteness is perhaps the fact that we are perpetually surprised by racism, even when it’s our … [Read more...]
