Like Father, Like Son

Editors’ Note: This piece is reprinted with permission (and appreciation) from the site GazillionVoices.com. I’m a 41-year-old adopted Korean American, and my son is a four-year-old African American adoptee. When I look at my son’s face, I think about … Read More

How My Social Justice Failed My Family

Editors’ Note: This piece is reprinted with permission (and appreciation) from Still Furious and Brave.  I’ve never felt more helpless than hearing my dad tell me that someone bought the house that I grew up in. After using student … Read More

Social Fact: Death—Not the “Great Equalizer”?

Death has been poetically referred to as the “great equalizer,” yet epidemiologic data tell a different story. The age at which one dies varies dramatically by race and gender, with women maintaining a clear advantage over men, and whites and … Read More

From Unassimilable to Exceptional

The Changing Status of Asian Americans Following a recent public lecture in my hometown of Philadelphia, I was approached by a female member of the audience who asked where I had gone to high school. A retired high school teacher, … Read More

The Fascination and Frustration with Native American Mascots

In the spring of 2013, a racial controversy emerged in that usually rarified, entertainment realm of sport. It had to do with the “Redskins” moniker used by the NFL’s Washington, D.C. , franchise, one of the most prominent and profitable … Read More

Social Fact: The Homicide Divide

The United States has a long and troubled history with violence, from the slaughtering of the American Indians to the American Revolution to the gun culture of the Wild West (that, in many ways, still remains). Comparisons with other wealthy, … Read More

Colorblindness vs. Race-Consciousness—An American Ambivalence

Racial diversity makes many people both proud and anxious. This ambivalence is no accident. We live in a society with deep racial inequalities and pervasive color-blind ideals. Read More

Wearing Privilege

Trayvon Martin was a black teenage boy. He was walking home from the convenience store when he caught the attention and ire of George Zimmerman. Perceived as a “punk” and a threat, Martin was accosted by the older man, and … Read More

The Struggle for a Truly Grassroots Human Rights Movement

Some say human rights are an ideology imposed on the rest by the powerful west. Read More

White Trash: The Social Origins of a Stigmatype

White trash. For many, the name evokes images of trailer parks, meth labs, beat-up Camaros on cinder blocks, and poor rural folks with too many kids and not enough government cheese. It’s a put-down, the name given to those whites … Read More