When my book editor asks why I don't have new material to give her, I'm showing her this. I'm consumed with correcting injustice, righting wrongs. I am (a musically inclined) Lady Vengeance!

In today's episode of "My Favorite White" (MFW), we have Madame LaLaurie. A New Orleans dame whose brutal torture of her enslaved people led locals to mob her mansion and tear it apart with their hands.

Brought to you by Black History Month.

Just noticing my Apple calendar doesn't either, and I'm pretty sure it used to!

“…it is tacitly understood that these things are not mentioned—and therefore they do not exist.”

― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

3- unanesthetized and unconsenting female slaves. It's because of the unwilling sacrifices of those poor women - whose names we don't memorialize - that we have some of the gynecologica techniques we do today. So on this day in BHM, here's to the white torturer, J. Marion Sims!

2- Things like Black History Month. So let's play a little game. For each remaining day of BHM, let's share what l'm going to call "My Favorite White" (or, MFW).

I'll start: mine is the "father" of modern gynecology, J. Marion Sims. Y'all may know him? Kinda famous for testing his procedures on

I just want, one time, them to tell me what "diversity" means.

A student from my course last fall stopped by to say hello and mentioned she was grabbing lunch with another student from that class.

I joked that that's resistance - and she said it really is, she's building social capital!

My class did more than teach material, it fomented community!

Jason Brennan talks a bit about this in some of his work on epistocracy.