Chauncey DeVega
- Location
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Birthday
- September 11
- Title
- A (Sometimes) Respectable Negro
- Bio
- Editor and Founder of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes
He has been a guest on the BBC, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.
His essays have been featured by Salon, Alternet, the New York Daily News, and the Daily Kos.
The NY Times, the Daily Beast, the Utne Reader, Washington Monthly, Slate, and the Week (among others) have featured his expert commentary and analysis on race, politics, and popular culture.
MY RECENT POSTS
- A Country of Strangers: Racial
Framing and Superstorm Sandy
November 05, 2012 04:17PM - What are the Real Burdens
Faced by a Black President?
October 18, 2012 04:53PM - Forget Boxing, the 2012
Election is More Like Pro
Wrestling
October 12, 2012 01:23PM - That Was No Rope-a-Dope: Obama
Got His Butt Kicked by Romney
October 04, 2012 12:26PM - The "Obama Phone" Lady vs.
Angry White Men with Guns
October 02, 2012 10:56AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “@L. There is so much
hostility and animus out
there, the
implicit bias that
is lo…”
October 18, 2012 06:39PM - “@MS. Thanks, how kind.
Appreciated.”
October 04, 2012 07:34PM - “The personal is
political as I keep saying on
these matters.
Funny, how few
folks…”
August 14, 2012 05:58PM - “@all thanks for your
comments and interventions
against the
mouth breathers
who i…”
August 12, 2012 10:04PM - “Every little effort
helps. We shall see.”
May 11, 2012 03:32PM
Chauncey DeVega's Links
The news media and pundits love to use sports analogies when discussing American politics. When describing the 2012 race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, boxing is their sport of choice.
Obama's supporters have inaccurately described his defeat by Romney in the first debate as a version of/… Read full post »
In a fight between an enthusiastic lie and a tepid truth the former will always win. The most noble of us will hold on to the abstract virtues of the truth. Pragmatists will understand that a win is a win regardless of how it is delivered.
The supporters and allies of… Read full post »
It does not take a degree in cultural theory, visual culture, or expertise in semiotics to process the differences between these two pictures.
The first image, taken from The Washington Post's story about political polarization in Virginia, is of a white gun shop owner who believes/… Read full post »
The chattering classes are still talking about Joe Biden's "y'all" and "put you back in chains" turn of phrase from a speech that he made last week in Danville, Virginia. Republicans, members of the party of Willie Horton and Birtherism, have lept at an opportunity to call a Democ/… Read full post »
Yes Virginia, despite what you may hear on Fox News, Right-wing websites, and talk radio, "niggerization" is in fact a real word.
I have had my issues with Toure in the past--most notably his wholesale lifting of my argument that Herman Cain was/is a race minstrel--but I can/… Read full post »
The political scatology which is Mitt Romney's willful and racist lie that President Obama wants to end welfare reform, and give free money to all those lazy black and brown human parasites that want to live off of white people, has attracted some flies.
The media spins its wheels, deb/… Read full post »
Two weeks ago dozens were killed and wounded in Aurora, Colorado. Sunday, a gunman shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Wisconsin. The "Gunfighter Nation" is apparently eating itself alive; the NRA continues to hand it the silverware and knives.
As I wrote here /… Read full post »
History is a trickster (again).
In all of the excitement over the "revelation" that President Obama is apparently a descendant from John Punch, the first African-American slave in the colonies, many glossed over the following bit of important information.
From ABC News:
The enslaved, black… Read full post »
The Colorado "Batman Movie" Shooting Massacre will generate many narratives among the public and media. This tragedy will be one more opportunity to reflect on the United States' gun laws. The relationship between popular culture and violence will be a hot topic as well. Others will focus on question… Read full post »
This is not rocket science.
Mitt Romney likes firing people. Mitt Romney drives with terrified family pets on the roof of his car. Mitt Romney assaulted a gay student while in prep school. Mitt Romney tricked a blind teacher, apparently one he "liked," letting the man walk into a glass door. He… Read full post »
Extremely Rare Mated Set of Two Small Child's Size Slave Hand-Forged Rattle Shackles & Made for the Slave Trade c. 1800 19th Century, Set of Two, Small Child's Size Slave Shackles, Hand-forged Iron, With Internal "Rattles," Choice Very Fine.… Read full post »This impressive set of child size slave shackl
Blackness comes with no expectations of safety, care, or security.
Mediated realities. The pictures inside of people's heads. Life worlds. Bonding social capital. Lifestyle enclaves. The Big Sort. Red State and Blue State America. The color line. Residential housing segregation. Dense and exclus… Read full post »
We are running out of metaphors with which to describe the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Is this saga a Rorschach test, one where the polarizations of race, class, and political orientation (quite literally) color how we interpret the events of that tragic evening? Or… Read full post »
George Zimmerman was quite the contrite killer during his bond
hearing. In an act of great self-sacrifice and generosity he took
the stand and offered up the following apology to the family of the
murdered Trayvon Martin:
Zimmerman, 28, appeared in court in a dark suit… Read full post »
Holiday had been right about the tension. One of the first people I meet scans me up and down and looks at my notebook. “Write something down for me,” he says. “Get the fuck out of here.” He’s an exception. The people stopping and shopping in the late afternoon are… Read full post »
The killing of Trayvon Martin is a Rorschach test for American society. This tragedy reveals a deep divide in our political imaginations and communities. It also is a mirror for the fissures of race, ideology, and party that still vex and befuddle us to the present.
Some folks imagine themselve
… Read full post »Scholars have long maintained that race is merely a social construct, not something fixed into our nature, yet this insight hasn’t made it any less of a factor in our lives. If we no longer participate in a society in which the presence of black blood renders a person black, then… Read full post »
The 2012 Republican primary season has featured many head-scratching moments. From audiences that cheer the macabre and the cruel, a fratricidal nomination process in which the front runners seem intent on destroying one another, and a collective descent into madness where the most fringe Right/
… Read full post »Over the last few days, I have watched this interview with Ron Paul several times. Something about his tone of voice just doesn't sit right with me, the detached indifference rubs me the wrong way.
It is easy to flatten history, in doing so to generate stories of evil men, barbarous and
… Read full post »
On his MSNBC show Hardball, Chris Matthews called out Newt Gingrich and other Republicans for what he described as their "dog whistle" appeals to white racism during the South Carolina debate on Monday night.
He was correct in identifying the work that racism does for the Tea P
… Read full post »Ron Paul's non-answer about his racist attitudes towards black Americans during the New Hampshire GOP debate was a classic evasion. It was also a virtual admission of guilt.
Akin to a man on trial for murdering his wife--but who insists on talking about how he is a good father--Ron Paul is
… Read full post »The 2012 Republican presidential field, a hydra which self-destructively feeds on itself, had one more battle royale in Iowa. Fighting to a standstill, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul bloodied each other. While the Tea Party GOP is still a house divided, their leading candidates share a common,
… Read full post »Blitzer pressed on: “But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” Someone in the audience shouted, “Yeah!” And the crowd roared in approval.
A characteristic that these exchanges have in common is cruelty. Cruelty is a close cousin to injustice, yet i… Read full post »
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com