Portside

Susan Reverby’s riveting biography of Alan Berkman is a magnificent book. Berkman was imprisoned in the 60s, convicted for his political work. On regaining his freedom he devoted his life to public health and helping those the system abandoned.

An eloquent and moving call for voting rights reform shows the former Georgia House minority leader is ready for higher office.

“Homemade,” a wondrous and mostly satisfying anthology of 17 short films made round the world over the past two months - reveal a scattershot collage of the world in 2020.

Undermined by displacement and centuries of cultural assimilation, indigenous foodways are careening toward extinction. A number of increasingly prominent Native chefs hope to change that.

The duality of Hamilton is difficult and challenging and frankly upsetting. That’s probably why Hamilton has since its Broadway debut spawned countless takes and critiques attempting to navigate its competing readings, trying to define it as either

“I’d like us to rethink/What it is to be a nation,” writes the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

I often used to look at the union work as something like walking a tightrope backwards while juggling without a net … The wire must be made of grassroots. The moment the union highwire artist feels those grassroots under foot, they know they are safe

In this essay, Tim Whitmarsh challenges what most of us were taught, and what we think we know, about the Ancient world and the idea of "race."

"I stand with Black Lives Matter but still, as I watched the obligatory scene of Vietnamese soldiers getting shot and killed for the thousandth time, I thought: Does it make any difference if politically conscious Black men kill us?"

The debate over Aunt Jemima and other food mascots and their own problematic brand marketing stirred up a lot of curiosity about food and race; these books about food and Black identity add to the conversation.