If the goal is liberation, “Who is Oppressed?” is not a particularly productive question, as even the most powerful of people can display that they, too, harbor some form of oppression, usually legible in acts of petulance. Righteous indignation, despite their power. Blistering red in the face, they yell “Victim!” repeatedly, any time accountability is…

A few years ago, I read a popular academic feminist book in which the popular feminist author said she was going to do something radical and not quote any white men. Which meant she plagiarized them, instead. She not only plagiarized white men, but she also plagiarized a certain lesbian feminist who was a mentor…

NBC Think asked me to write a short, 200-word reflection on my recent article on Ellen, George W. Bush, and the cost of acceptance. Below is the full version, which was condensed for the newsletter. Central to my analysis of Ellen Degeneres’ defense of her friendship with former US president George W. Bush is the…

If reading was the most noble act, for Ellen, then writing was the most dangerous. This is why at the ripe age of 14, she decided to exchange tickling the ivories with writing in her journal. This is why she became a literature scholar. Teaching put both reading and writing into practice. Through teaching, she…

I’m tickled to have had a “fire tweet” on Buzzfeed’s AM/DM — a simple tweet calling out the sexist double standards of the presidential candidate coverage and public perception. The 52K+ people who have liked this tweet fully understand that the political arena — from media coverage to $$ — has not made the space…

Last night, I saw Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, a new documentary by Matt Tyrnauer about Scott Bowers, Hollywood’s ultimate serviceman. The documentary, inspired by Bowers’s tell-all memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Lives of the Stars, is promising in its subject matter but ultimately fails to deliver. Bowers’s…