Baz Dreisinger, a freelance journalist, teaches English and American Studies at the City University of New York and is writing a book about racial passing in American culture.
That beat you can't get out of your head is reggae -- think Sean Paul, not Marley -- and it's inspiring everyone from Missy to Beyonce to No Doubt. Inside the Kingston studio with one of the riddim nation's masterminds.
Jonathan Kesselman's "The Hebrew Hammer" is the manifesto for a hip, hype-driven "new Jewishness." But here's a news flash: American Jews aren't actually black, and anti-Semitic stereotypes aren't automatically funny.
These days we're supposed to think race doesn't matter. But as "The Human Stain" and a raft of recent writing makes clear, we're just as fascinated by its slippery boundaries as ever.
