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How Rock and Roll Became White

Colin Vanderburg Los Angeles Review of Books
Rock and roll music has always been a site of struggle over issues of race and racism. In this insightful review, Colin Vanderburg surveys what Jack Hamilton has o say regarding how rock music succumbed to the lure of American racism.

Is it Still "Diversity" or "Inclusion" if No One's Broke on TV?

Shannon M. Houston Paste
Why are we championing diversity and inclusivity when it comes to race and gender, but not class? Class, which we all know by now is just as much a defining factor in a person’s life as race or gender (if not moreso).

Hanging Onto Our Selves

Fred Voss Cultural Weekly
Forty years working as a machinist, poet Fred Voss zeroes in on the quiet danger of repetitive work and how comradeship and imagination transcend the boredom and the threat.

Winning at Russian Roulette

Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed
McLemee looks at 30 academic studies of Hillary Clinton, finding interest in her focusing either as a user of some form of communication media or as an object of media representation. Like the campaign's news coverage, where personality trumped policy, research tended to focus on how Clinton challenged or was constrained by traditional female roles or implicit assumptions about the proper connect between public and private identity than in her work as a public official.

Were the Framers Democrats?

Cass Sunstein The New Rambler
This book, says reviewer Cass Sunstein, "might well be the best book ever written on the founders and their handiwork." It is the kind of book that helps provide useful context for this complex political moment. Readers interested in this topic might also look at America's Constitution: A Biography, by Akhil Reed Amar (Random House, 2005).

More Than Ever - We Need Your Help

Portside
Every day, we at Portside contribute our best efforts at finding and sharing the most interesting and useful material we can - to help remake the world into a fairer and more peaceful place. Seeing Portside's material read and forwarded and acted on is a huge reward. Once a year, we appeal to readers to contribute to join us in helping make the work of possible. It may be the biggest return on investment you'll ever get. Please, click here to help us keep on keepin' on.

The 19th Century’s Greatest Vegetable Photographer

Allison Meier Hyperallergenic Newsletter
The vegetable photographs of Charles Jones are remarkable, being ahead of their time in still life photography, and presenting a very modern view with the careful framing and studio portraits.

When Past Is Present: 'After Fire' Is A Nuanced Portrait of Women Veterans

Amelia Ayrelan Luvino Bitch
The opening scenes of After Fire, the new documentary about the struggles faced by women veterans after they leave military service, make a case for its importance through statistics. Viewers are informed that women are the fastest growing group of veterans, and that one in five veterans are women.