mixed race

Microphone centered on foggy stage
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Looking Otherwise

ByVeronica Fitzpatrick

We are one month post-“Formation.” In the wake of Beyoncé’s video release (/Super Bowl halftime performance/world tour announcement), a frenzy of reactions and reactions to reactions has proliferated. Only they’re not just reactions, they’re readings. On the immediate surface of the song’s lyrics, “Formation” is about being Black, and crucially also about looking Black, about…

vintage viginia map
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NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA: Journey to the Center of an American Document

ByKiki Petrosino

This is the start of a monthly journey through Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. I’ve loved this book for many years. It’s scholarly and luminous, unfolding a rich lexicon. Open its pages and whole rivers, chunks of amethyst, living birds, and secret mammoth skeletons tumble forth. This is the realm where Jefferson…