uryder's blog

In Defense of Jay Z

Full text available at Cultural Weekly



Tweeting into the Future

This course examines the ways that gender and race are influenced by technology and social media.



I Am (not) Whatever You Say I Am: Race and Representation in Popular Culture

This course explores the ways that race is constructed in U.S. media. Students gain a fuller understanding of the processes by which race is constructed, projected and reified through media. We also interrogate the uses of media in subverting and challenging racial hierarchies.



Teaching Trayvon

Also available on Cultural Weekly

I am a college professor who often teaches about race and ethnicity. Last week one of my classes reached the point in our syllabus where we were to discuss Civil Rights and Black Power. Having taught this before I know it can be tricky. One of the great things is that my students – most of whom are under 21 years old – have so benefitted from the struggles of the 1960s that their lives rarely contain the racial violence of those whom we study. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to demonstrate the ways racism and racial violence are still prevalent in our society. Trayvon Martin’s murder made this reality horrifyingly clear and made the 1960s seem less distant for my students.



“The Scream”

In Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness, ed. Rebecca Walker (forward by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.). Soft Skull Press.(2012)



“Reflections on The Help”

In JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies



“Passing as a Woman(ist)?: A Look at Black Women’s Narratives in Tyler Perry’s Films”

Co-author (with Marcia A. Dawkins) in The Tyler Perry Reader edited by Ronald Jackson and Jamel Bell (forthcoming)