In 1930, nineteen-year-old black (preta) Jovelina Pereira dos Santos, a live-in domestic servant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hid her […]
The Gastropolitics of School Lunch
For Americans of a certain age, the term school lunch evokes the worst elements of institutional dining: soggy pizza, mushy […]
UK Squatters’ Fight for Decent Housing
The topic of squatting — living in or using a dwelling without the owner’s permission — often elicits condemnation from […]
Poking Holes in Political Memes: History, the Welfare State, and the Trope of the Founding Fathers
An elderly man behind me in the checkout line at the grocery store asked me what I do. When I […]
“Why does Congress wish to have mothers and babies die?”
It takes a rare political personality to gain regular air-time on today’s political pundit shows. Former Ohio State Senator Nina […]
Mommy Wars of Yore: Classism and its Casualties
Most of us are familiar with the Mommy Wars. The Internet is the battlefield, and woman is pitted against woman […]
Love, Death, and Human Rights: A View from Rio de Janeiro
My partner Clayton was murdered while riding his motorcycle home from work on April 28, 2015. He was followed by […]
Obama, Ryan, O’Reilly, and the Poverty of the Political Imagination
By Austin McCoy
President Obama, Paul Ryan, and Bill O’Reilly walk into a bar. Rather than engage in abstract conversations about the role of America in the world or the federal government’s role in the market, they decide to talk about an issue where they can forge some common ground. What issue could the three men come together around? It is probable they would likely converge around trying to explain and address the poverty of black men and women in the United States. This common ground is possible because national conversations about public policy never seem to escape the orbit of culture, meritocracy, colorblindness, and normative understandings of gender and family. More specifically, Ryan’s, Obama’s, and O’Reilly’s recent comments on the subject revolve around two political archetypes—the heteronormative family and the black male. When considered together, they take a special place in our nation’s “gendered imagination.”