Search Results

This chapter examines the represents of beur men in French queer cinema. It discusses the acting career of Salim Kechiouche and looks at the two early films by Sébastien Lifshitz to refute the notion that sexual objectification would form some kind of inevitable structure to male cross-race relations. The chapter analyses queer porn video and art cinema, and highlights gender imbalance and the consequential exclusion of male femininity resulting from the disavowal of femininity among beur for cultural and religious reasons.

This chapter explores national trends in literature popularity in 1930s Britain. Bearing in mind the popularity of film comedy, it is surprising that the least-populated category in literature is ‘Humorous’. Unlike the romance genre, which did well in both written and visual form, comedy fared much better in the latter. The trends reveal a gender imbalance in working-class reading habits and point towards conservatism in the reading habits of working-class men. Whereas working-class women tended to cast the net widely and read fiction from a range of authors, men appeared to stick to a relatively small number of their favorite writers, with evidence of the ebb and flow of author popularity among them. A large number of new magazines were introduced during the 1930s, reflecting the growing demand among readers for a type of reading material that did not distract from the many requirements of the day. This increased the trend towards ‘scattered’ reading, answering and responding to working-class cultural competences identified by mass-observers. They were far from being slaves to highbrow literary tastes.

Some police officers think that their rise to the top was pre-destined, others that they came to senior promotion very late. This chapter describes the processes by which they became aware of their potential, the poor levels of representation of women in the top ranks, security and unease in these command jobs and work-life balance (or lack of it) among chief police officers.

When negligence thwarts parental efforts to select for socially salient traits like sex, race, and disability, compensation risks cutting against public safety or morality. Mandated cash payments for the wrongful defeat of attempts to choose a child to be deaf or male or white have the potential to undermine public commitments to newborn health, gender balance, or racial equality. This chapter argues that these concerns will only under exceptional circumstances rule out any remedy for confounded procreation. Even in rare cases for which recovery is not valid but void, courts should still grant nominal damages for generalized reproductive injuries—to deter professional misconduct and vindicate broader interests in offspring selection. In cases involving the failure to screen or diagnose some offspring condition, it’s not just private individuals or couples deciding what’s best for their own lives. Tort awards can impart an existential insult to people whose conditions were singled out for elimination—that verdict reflects the binding conclusion that the judge or jury reaches in view of specific facts and applicable law. But that expressive power shouldn’t immunize professional wrongdoing that thwarts eccentric offspring selection. Concerns about “quality control” are essentially contested—whether framed in terms of parental love or playing God, these visions of reproductive restraint don’t reflect social consensus. The not-so-distant history of racial ordering across family units comes closer to voiding complaints for confounded race. But courts should still provide limited recovery, with explicit caveats—to affirm generic interests in offspring selection, while disclaiming any racial component.

This chapter describes the growth and consolidation of the Chambers law firm in the first half of the 1970s. As the firm hired new lawyers, it maintained a roughly equal balance of white and black attorneys. Growth gave rise to certain tensions, including those between the all-female staff and the firm’s all-male lawyers as a consequence of the firm's inattention to the issue of gender equity. The firm suffered some financial pressure, the result of diminished reimbursements from the LDF, waning fees as Title VII litigation wound down, and Chambers's continuing reluctance to prioritize financial gain over the firm's core mission of service to the African American community. Racial violence rocked the firm when, in February of 1971, an arsonist largely destroyed the firm's offices. No arrests are made. After the firm relocated to temporary quarters in an aging Charlotte motel, Chambers, several of his partners, black physicians, and other black professionals collaborated to build finance and build East Independence Plaza, a multi-story office building that opened in March of 1973, the first building of its type in North Carolina owned and operated by African Americans.