Lauren Michele Jackson – Carol's Notebook

Author: Lauren Michele Jackson

Lauren Michele Jackson’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Eater, Essence, New York magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, and The Best American Food Writing 2018, among other places. Her first book, White Negroes, is a collection of critical essays on race and appropriation, forthcoming from Beacon Press in November 2019. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and teaches in the departments of English and African American Studies at Northwestern University.

White Negroes is a great collection of essays around cultural appropriation and how it relates to power and privilege. It's a short book, but each of the topics, music, art, fashion, language, economy, feels like it's covered well with data and references and examples that get the author's points across. The book is well structured, meticulously researched, and very readable. I do admit that I did miss some of her cultural references, current musicians or memes or whatever that I'm just not familiar with. White Negroes is definitely worth reading. I learned a lot. Obviously, I knew cultural appropriation exists, but I don't have a clear concept of how prevalent it is and how damaging to the black community. And some of the examples are just outrageous. Jackson doesn't suggest there are easy answers or that the topics are clear cut. She does ask us to respect, recognize, and pay the creators, and to recognize how we contribute to the...