In Barbados, there's a property called the Cleland Plantation. These days it's a place for tourists to go horseback riding, but back in 1728, it was a prosperous sugar cane farm known for being a place of cruelty and brutality, where slaves were literally worked to death. It was owned by Abraham Cumberbatch, the… » 2/03/14 12:40pm 2/03/14 12:40pm

Going insane was a luxury. It’s the going, that’s the treat. Going suggests travel, moving. There was no going. The madness was constant and still, sitting there, like a place on a map. It was where they lived, where they were from, born and bred into viscously mundane inescapable crazy. The women in the beautifully… » 10/28/13 11:30am 10/28/13 11:30am

If you grow up attending east coast public schools and you manage to make it through the early years of elementary school, you are often rewarded with an educational overnight trip with all your classmates. On that trip, you learn about different types of plants and the exhausting reality of what it's like to be around … » 9/19/13 6:30pm 9/19/13 6:30pm

Last night, just a month and change into serving his life + 1,000-year sentence for kidnapping three Cleveland women and keeping them captive under hellish conditions for a decade, Ariel Castro committed suicide in jail. After I heard the news, I felt a range of awful, base emotions, none of which made me feel good… » 9/04/13 11:30am 9/04/13 11:30am

Actress and comedian Azie Mira Dungey used to work as a historical re-enactor at Mount Vernon. And 1- because George Washington's old stomping grounds are staffed with people acting out roles they might have had during the George Washington days and 2- Dungey is black, she played the role of a slave named Lizzy Mae.… » 9/03/13 1:10pm 9/03/13 1:10pm

White people who are confronted with their white privilege and the white supremacist acts they perpetuate have been known to cry, "You're being a reverse-racist!" That is completely true: people of color have the power and control to create, perpetuate, and maintain brutal systematic reverse-racism that oppresses white… » 6/29/12 1:50pm 6/29/12 1:50pm

A bitchy white woman belittling her black maid. A Latino man being tied up and called racial slurs. A black woman being offered for sale at a slave auction. All of these are awful in reality, but for people who are into race-play — or racialized sexual situations — they can be extremely hot. I talked to two people… » 3/14/12 1:45pm 3/14/12 1:45pm

Don't let the repetitive coverage of Michele Bachmann as an increasingly mainstream, or at least ubiquitous, candidate fool you. She's a telegenic opportunist, yes, but there's no evidence that she is still anything but an extremist, strongly motivated by what's benignly known as "social issues." » 8/08/11 11:15am 8/08/11 11:15am