Monday, November 4

Tag: southern

The Irresistible Allure Of Mocking Southern Accents – TikTok, #BamaRush
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IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA

The Irresistible Allure Of Mocking Southern Accents – TikTok, #BamaRush

  As college students across the country return to campuses grappling with the COVID-19 delta variant, Greek letters of a different variety have captivated social media feeds with stunning virality. The #BamaRush trend on TikTok introduced followers to the annual recruitment process for National Panhellenic Conference sororities at the University of Alabama. The popular videos offer a firsthand perspective on the recruitment process, showcasing the various events and the women’s corresponding fashion choices – the “outfit of the day,” or #OOTD – for each stage. When this phenomenon came to my attention, I noticed that TikTok’s algorithm fed me not only the posts of women participating in #BamaRush but also parody videos made by people glued to the unfolding events. In these videos...
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As Revealed In The Killing Of Ahmaud Arbery ‘Southern Hospitality’ Doesn’t Always Apply To Black People
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

As Revealed In The Killing Of Ahmaud Arbery ‘Southern Hospitality’ Doesn’t Always Apply To Black People

The idea of community and who belongs and who does not was a common theme in the Jan. 7, 2022, sentencing hearing of three white men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery. “They chose to target my son because they didn’t want him in their community,” said Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, during the hearing. “When they couldn’t sufficiently scare him or intimidate him, they killed him.” Arbery was the 25-year-old unarmed Black man who was shot to death on Feb. 23, 2020, while jogging through a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia. Race went largely unspoken throughout the trial, but the idea of belonging was clearly drawn in black and white. As a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Clark and Atlanta University, I have witnessed and studied perf...
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The Irresistible Allure Of Mocking Southern Accents – TikTok, #BamaRush
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CULTURE

The Irresistible Allure Of Mocking Southern Accents – TikTok, #BamaRush

CULTURE Kathryn Cunningham, University of Tennessee As college students across the country return to campuses grappling with the COVID-19 delta variant, Greek letters of a different variety have captivated social media feeds with stunning virality. The #BamaRush trend on TikTok introduced followers to the annual recruitment process for National Panhellenic Conference sororities at the University of Alabama. The popular videos offer a firsthand perspective on the recruitment process, showcasing the various events and the women’s corresponding fashion choices – the “outfit of the day,” or #OOTD – for each stage. When this phenomenon came to my attention, I noticed that TikTok’s algorithm fed me not only the posts of women participating in #BamaRush but also parody videos made by people g...
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How Southern Communities Tackle Summertime Food Scarcity
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Journalism

How Southern Communities Tackle Summertime Food Scarcity

Without free and reduced school lunch programs during the summer, many children go hungry. Local organizations and churches are stepping up to help to narrow the food gap. Jasmine Caston’s weekdays begin before the sun rises. A single mother of two daughters, Caston works full time and goes to school. Every day is a juggling act. To be sure it goes well, she and her children need to be out of the house no later than 6:20 a.m. Nine months of the year, this isn’t a big problem. The girls are in school. But summertime? That’s a different story. A mythology surrounding school’s summer vacation days is that they’re fun and restorative for children and their families. But this mythology has rarely applied to low-income families of color, especially across the American South, whe...
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Journalism

Every Southern cooking enthusiast worth their salt needs these 8 books by African-American chefs and authors

To get a taste of the true history of Southern cuisine, one must look to the work of African-American chefs, home cooks and writers. The eight cookbooks below are a crucial collection for any serious Southern cook. If you don't have these in your kitchen already, get them in your shopping cart now. There simply is no denying the impact that countless African-Americans have had in shaping food culture in our country. In the South specifically, the influence of black Americans is easily felt — and consumed — in everyday staples such as braised collard greens, candied yams and fried catfish. While other Southern chefs have received a lot of acclaim for bringing their interpretation of Southern food to the masses, this beloved cuisine was built in the kitchens of black folks below the Mason...
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After Centuries of Housing Racism, a Southern City Gets Innovative
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Journalism

After Centuries of Housing Racism, a Southern City Gets Innovative

Denise Fitzgerald’s property abuts the string of quiet, empty lots that line Ewing Street in Jackson, Mississippi. Recently she was leaf-blowing detritus shed by the enormous sycamore tree dominating the yard of her tidy Habitat for Humanity home. She says she’d cut the tree down herself but knows it’s big enough to take out both her house and the house beside her if she dare try it. Fitzgerald is familiar with the empty lots of Ewing Street, just a few blocks from Jackson State University. She’s lived here since 2008, and she remembers when Ewing was a series of derelict buildings smeared across the neighborhood. Only two empty houses remain. The rest is a collection of oak and hackberry trees, with some untamed vines. There is some human intervention, however. Every other week ...
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