This week, the B-Side sits down with Waverly Duck (University of Pittsburgh) and James Jones (Rutgers Newark).  Duck is the author of  No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing (University of Chicago Press).  Jones working on his book, The Last Plantation.

Dr. Jones spoke at “Framing the Value of Diversity & Inclusion in Higher Education: Setting the Research Agenda" a national academic conference hosted by Rutgers University on October 6th 2017. His presentation was titled "Race to Power: Challenging institutional inequality in the U.S. Congress.”

Students of color have earned the right to be on any campus they set foot on, and their colleges and universities are better off for having them. Yet, the ways that we continue to discuss race remain limited to the experience of people of color and not how institutional systems are predominantly structured to benefit those from already privileged backgrounds.

Traditionally, you are supposed to learn from your older siblings. They are more mature, have experienced the world, and have acquired knowledge that can make your life much easier. However, sometimes, learning goes in the other direction.

In the past few years, I have come to learn a lot about being an out and proud gay black man from my younger brother.

The Black professional staff I interviewed often brushed the nod off as a common cultural practice shared among African Americans outside of Capitol Hill. However, my analysis shows that what happens in these ephemeral interactions goes beyond signaling a quick greeting. Instead, it conveys important information about what it means to be Black while working in a White-dominated political institution.

I advocate as a primary recommendation that members of Congress collect and publish demographic data on its employees. Congress should follow the same set of rules that it imposes on others. The lack of data on this issue prevents this problem from moving beyond the Beltway boundaries.

There will be many headlines this week about the most diverse Congress ever. Those headlines will be accurate, but misleading. While it is true that the incoming Congress will represent the largest number of women and racial minorities ever to serve in the House and Senate, overall Congress will still be 80 percent white and 80 percent male. 

“Moonlight” is more than just an LGBT story. It subtly redefines who and what the black community is. Yes, there is violence, drugs, and poverty there. However, by focusing on the ordinary lives within in a black neighborhood, we see fuller representations of black life.

In 1978, Glenn famously labeled Congress the “Last Plantation,” to highlight how the institution was exempt from federal workplace laws, making the legislature one of the last places where racial discrimination was allowable. The senator spent much of his twenty-year career on Capitol Hill working to end this congressional double standard that exempted lawmakers from the laws they passed.  

I talked to the mothers of Sandra Bland and Dondre Hamilton about their support for Hillary Clinton and black voter engagement 

Loretta Lynch had to wait 166 days to be confirmed as the next Attorney General, longer than any nominee for this position and longer than the last seven Attorney General nominees combined, but why?

While we are unable to ascertain if there are racist underpinnings in the long delay Ms. Lynch has suffered, it does not mean we cannot use Ms. Lynch's case to understand the role of race and gender in the modern Senate more broadly.

In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin expiates about American society, writing presciently that it is "a civilization sexually so pathetic that the white man's masculinity depends on a denial of the masculinity of the blacks." As always, Baldwin's writing is relevant for understanding contemporary society and the persistence of American racism and provides some explanation for the marginal professional success black gay men experience. However, it would be inappropriate and misleading to label that success as "black gay privilege" as did Dr. John Fitzgerald Gates. As a gay black man, I find fault in many of Dr. Gates' assertions principally because I have never encountered any of the secret spaces that he described where one gains access to a host of privileges. Furthermore, as a sociologist I am troubled by the instances where his claims of "black gay privilege" is not supported by social scientific evidence. 

 I am undoubtedly the biggest Beyoncé fan there is. I live and breathe her music. To me, there is no one greater. That being said, I feel I can say I am disappointed in Bey. At the Grammy’s, she sung “Take My Hand Precious Lord” a gospel classic written by Thomas Dorsey and recently sung by Ledisi for the movie Selma. Ledisi should have sung that song, a song for which she was nominated that night. However, there is a deeper issue at stake and that is how she and other artists can deploy racial symbols without doing the substantive work of protesting.

The 114th Congress officially began on January 6th and it is the most diverse Congress ever.

Here are 5 reasons why the diversity in Congress is not something really to celebrate