Kermit O

WRITER • EDUCATOR • DREAMER — Light brown. Unapologetically Black. Punches up. Writing a dreampunk novel about kids, trauma, and parallel worlds.

Education for Sustainability

February 26, 2021 • Education, Race and Racism, Sustainability and Regeneration


The moment demands a mass mobilization of people and collective will. Which means bridging gaps: in knowledge, resources, understanding, and empathy. In our conversations, and in our work around sustainability, we have to integrate those things which support and affirm our rights to healthy, dignified lives, so we even have the capacity to take on something so grandiose as “saving the planet”.

education for sustainability, phennd sustainability, philadelphia

Free Speech, Cancel Culture, and the Miseducation of Cousin Miles

July 14, 2020 • Politics, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


Those who benefit from the status quo (and those who aspire to) — by virtue of social, economic, or political power and privilege — would really quite like it, if the rest of you wouldn’t much mind, if we could just keep things “civil”. A premium is placed on preserving the appearance, not just of civility, but of the fundamental “goodness” of those in power.

cancel culture, Cousin Miles, free speech, Thomas Chatteron Williams

Who Should Have a Seat at the Education Policy Table?

August 10, 2019 • Education, Politics

That whole time, there were other voices, on the margins of academia and the political sphere – pushed there by the relentless power of the status quo and those who uphold it – who were already making the case Nick and Diane only just came to understand. There were teachers who understood it, even if they didn’t have the vocabulary or the platform to make the case, or of they did, were quickly buried by the neoliberal demands of the system and punished for noncompliance.

Civic Ventures, Dr. Bettina Love, Education Justice, Pitchfork Economics

To All The Never Books

May 9, 2019 • Until the Monsters Come, Writing

So I find myself thinking about all the “Never Books”, the books I will never write, not because of stagnation, but because for any given project I have to draw the line somewhere and finish it. There are infinite variations of any book I might write, given enough time to ruminate and to appropriate any and everything that captures my attention, stirs my devotion, or inspires my revolt. Truly, what would UTMC become if I gave it another twenty years?

Thought Experiments, UTMC, Writing Process

The Sacrifice of Ralph Northam on the Altar of Democratic Sanctimony

February 10, 2019 • Politics, Race and Racism, Society and Culture

This whole Virginia drama is revealing something important about the current Democratic establishment, something which has implications for both past and future, including the election of Donald Trump. That something is that Democrats are symbolic politicians, concerned more with the image of doing the right thing, than actually doing it. Where they effect policies that actually make a positive difference in people’s lives, it is usually reactive, a case of them “holding the line” against the worst abuses of the Republicans.

blackface, Democratic Party, Hypocrisy, ralph northam

Black Privilege

June 3, 2018 • Race and Racism, Society and Culture

There has undoubtedly been one person, or ten, or even one thousand black people who have gone through their lives with little to no observable experience with racism, don’t consciously feel its impact, and for that manage to gain some degree of success or wealth or high quality of life. Their experiences do not invalidate the very real existence of systems that make such outcomes more unlikely for the rest of us. Systems that privilege white people at the expense of people of color.

black experience, black privilege, thomas chatterton williams

The God That Google Made

May 19, 2018 • Society and Culture, Technology

I thought about the implications of this AI Overseer guiding thoughts, emotions, opinions, consumer habits, politics, public policy, among many other things, including the very modes of human interaction and our reasons for doing anything at all. It sounded like a “benevolent” dictator, but one with far more insight into and power over people on an individual and collective level than any human or their administration could ever manage.

It sounded like a god.

artificial intelligence, big data, google, selfish ledger

David Cage’s Long History of Racism

May 2, 2018 • Media Criticism, Race and Racism, Video Games

The recent accusations against Quantic Dream founder David Cage do not exist in a vacuum, nor without precedent. He wants to be judged by his work, and indeed if one looks critically at his games, a theme emerges. People of color are reduced to caricatures, invoke harmful stereotypes, and should remain at the margins, if they appear at all. Even if that means literally erasing them from settings where they predominate. This is not the cross-burning of the past or the anger-marching racism so en vogue these days, but the more deeply entrenched racism underlying all of our media institutions.

David Cage, Quantic Dream, racism

10 Tips on How to Include Black People

June 10, 2016 • Books, Comics, Film, Media Criticism, Race and Racism, TV, Video Games

Diverse representations of black people in media has nothing to do with “political correctness”. It has little to do with fairness, either. This is not a zero-sum game by which black gain equals white loss. What it concerns, most significantly, is the acceptance of this proposal that Black Lives Matter. That Black People Matter. Black representations are a matter of survival. Of casting us as fully-realized human beings with thoughts, feelings, dreams, aspirations, complexity, agency — against a backdrop that explicitly shows and tells us (everyone) that the opposite is true.

Blackness, Media Representation, Survival

The Return of Fear Effect and Fears About Its Effect

April 23, 2016 • Media Criticism, Video Games


Fear Effect is coming back. Have you heard? After the heartbreak of Inferno’s cancellation, and a 15 year wait with no new game in sight, French indie studio Sushee Games is creating Fear Effect: Sedna. Concerned about representations of Inuit peoples in the game, I decided to contact Sushee Games about how they would handle the use of Inuit aesthetic, cultural stories and history.

Cultural Appropriation, Fear Effect: Sedna, Inuit

Bill Cosby is an Actual Monster

July 28, 2015 • Gender and Sexuality, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


The truth of the matter is that these revelations haven’t tarnished the image of Cliff Huxtable, and changed him into a monster. Rather, the image of Cliff Huxtable was built around an actual monster. A monster playing his best role yet, as a beloved family icon and upstanding public figure.

Bill Cosby, Rape Culture

The Comic Subtleties of Anti-Blackness

October 22, 2014 • Comics, Media Criticism, Race and Racism


Sometimes it’s tucked away, hidden just beneath the tongue, or in the sly twist of the mouth…

Anti-blackness is so pervasive that I think media creators aren’t even aware of how they present it on a regular basis. That’s me giving them the benefit of the doubt, in spite of all the evidence that suggests it’s intentional.

anti-blackness, sex criminals, subtle racism

Black Mandarin

October 11, 2014 • Education, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


A contemplation of the revolutionary potential of teaching black kids Mandarin. Beyond allowing black people to have more mobility within a new power structure, fluency in Mandarin would allow us to spread our own influence. Our revolutionary spirit writ large to resonate with people around the world…

Black Students, Mandarin, Sci-Fi in Real Life, Speculative Fiction

Thomas Jefferson: Father of White Supremacy

August 17, 2014 • Media Analysis, Politics, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


When you hear the name Thomas Jefferson, it is likely followed by “founding father”, “hero”, “patriot”, and other such reverent terms. But he should also be considered one of the Founding Fathers of white supremacy. Nearly every white supremacist idea, claim, or rationale, can be found in Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia…

Rethinking History, Thomas Jefferson, White Supremacy

12 Years A Slave: For Whites Only

February 23, 2014 • Film, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


What does any black person stand to gain from sitting in a dark movie theater—more than likely surrounded by white people—and being psychologically assaulted for two hours? Will we then turn to those white audience members and discuss how horrible it all was, how many tears they shed, and eventually breathe a collective sigh of relief that all that was in the past, and thank God that we’ve come so far?

12 Years A Slave, Films for White People

Flexuality: The Elasticity of Sexual Norms in the Works of Octavia E. Butler

December 1, 2013 • Books, Gender and Sexuality, Media Analysis, Race and Racism, Society and Culture


An examination of how Butler challenges sexual norms, from the incest taboo in the Patternist series, to interspecies sex in the Lilith’s Brood trilogy, to pedophilia and rape in Fledgling, and arguably all three of these in her short story Bloodchild. These stories show us how norms, particularly sexual ones, are flexible between worlds, cultures, and especially individuals.

Octavia E. Butler, sexual norms, SFF

The Case for a “Mexican Superman”

August 13, 2013 • Comics, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Racism

The obvious reason for more diversity and inclusion in comics is to allow marginalized people to better identify with the characters. For white fans, whether they are willing to accept it or not, the white default actually makes characters less interesting. A bold claim, I know, but bear with me. Superheroes, I think, are more interesting for being more human, for having trauma, hardship, and conflict. To the great extent that white folks – particularly cisgendered heterosexual men – have privilege and power, it further insulates them against the kinds of scenarios that give birth to heroes.

Diversity in Comics, Inclusion in Comics, Superheroes

The Failures of the Legend of Korra

September 18, 2012 • Media Criticism, Reviews, TV

Taken as a whole, the first season of The Legend of Korra failed, because of what the creators seemed to be setting in motion – call it a promise of great things to come, even – and how they did not deliver on that promise by the season finale…

Avatar, Korra, SFF

Those who cannot remember the past…

May 18, 2012 • Society and Culture

…are condemned to repeat it:

The following passage is from The Principle of the Mercantile System, written in 1776 by Adam Smith, who ironically, has become a sort of symbol of the same type of “free market” capitalists who Smith seems to be criticizing here. More striking than any of that, though, is how much this passage so precisely reflects our current situation.

Capitalism, Free Market, War

Rhetorical Inclusiveness

August 21, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Criticism

I take issue with the very idea that it need be some sort of marketing or political strategy, some sort of acquiescence to irrational demands that someone represent or treat people of color with sensitivity and respect. Yet in the case of Tithe, I am left wondering if that was not exactly the point.

holly black, inclusiveness, tithe

The High Concept of Fate

May 18, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

Who Fears Death, for its fatalistic structure, could have easily fallen into the trap of giving the overall plot precedence over the characters. Yet, on the contrary, the vast majority of the book was spent developing the characters as they traveled – no, were pulled along – towards their fate…

Nnedi Okorafor, SFF, Who Fears Death

The Villain’s Niche

May 7, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Criticism

While we exalt or vilify real life figures, we know deep down that people are more complex than what their words or actions tell us, or what great good or great evil we might wish to project upon them. By contrast, heroes and villains also make things easy on us: they are easy to love and support, or easy to hate and blame for all that is wrong with the world…

MK Hobson, Native Star, SFF

A Note of Discord

March 31, 2011 • Close Reading, Media Analysis, Reviews

Follow the Waves, written by Amal El-Mohtar, is a story filled with gorgeous, rhythmic language, of the sort to be expected from someone who is a poet first. It seems that nearly every paragraph is layered with multiple meanings, and contain phrases that we could even call verses…

Amal El-Mohtar, SFF, Steam-Powered

Reality Shift

March 31, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

We take it for granted that our perception of reality is grounded in some objective truth. We do not even consider the possibility that there is no such thing, that instead “reality” is composed of a multitude of overlapping spheres of perception, the shared spaces together making up those aspects of reality that we agree upon – the collective consciousness, to give it another name…

insanity, perception, rachel manija brown, steel rider

The Misrepresentation of the Magical Negro

March 7, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

It is one of the oldest clichés that the “forces of darkness” will set upon that which is good and “light”. In a medium where the heroes are most often white and characters of color – especially black characters – are reduced to plot devices, and in a society where power is designated along lines of “light” and “dark”, the old trope is necessarily racialized…

magical negro, Nnedi Okorafor, SFF

The Battle for Brain Space

February 27, 2011 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

An analysis of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods — As the battle for “brain space” rages on, with each new scientific innovation, new interpretations of history, shifts in culture and society, we must reconcile these changes with the deep-seated desire in all of us to hold on to some part of our pasts…

American Gods, Neil Gaiman, SFF

Shapeshifting and the Locus of Self

November 27, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

The concept of self as a collection of interchangeable parts is consistent with our existential freedom to “reinvent” ourselves, once we recognize that we have the ability to do so. We can change how we interface with others, our outward appearance, our language, our gender, even to a point our “race” – at least with respect to our own internal concept of self, apart, if not completely removed from the perceptions of others…

Octavia E. Butler, SFF, Wild Seed

Coyote Kings and the Cost of Civilization

November 23, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

Heinz Meaney’s implication is that our final advancement as human beings will be predicated upon the annihilation of the world itself. Faust seems to be suggesting we look at our “highly advanced” civilization for what it is – violent, invasive, and ultimately destructive….

Coyote Kings, Minister Faust, SFF

Multi-Purpose Exposition

November 16, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

We view the sunset through a different lens – one of morose, even pessimistic contemplation. The sun is not merely setting to rise another day, it is dying. The clouds are torn, suggesting that their condition is not natural, but has been inflicted upon them…

Richard Morgan, SFF, The Steel Remains

Exclusion and Fetishism

November 14, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Racism

For all “darkness” figures into the thinking of fantasy authors, it is conspicuously absent from the features of the characters. Except the “dark lords” and such, who play off of the fact that darkness equates to evil in the white literary imagination. Tolkien took it a step further, equating not only darkness with evil in the abstract, but designing his evil characters – goblins, trolls, and the like – with Africanesque features…

Broken Kingdoms, NK Jemisin, SFF

Contemplating Cultural Appropriation

November 9, 2010 • Until the Monsters Come, Writing

In Until the Monsters Come, I borrow from first-hand accounts of the Stolen Generations of Indigenous Australians. As I’ve continued writing, however, I’ve gotten to thinking about cultural appropriation…

Cultural Appropriation, Media Representation, Writer's Responsibility

Identifying the Indian Killer

October 16, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Race and Racism, Society and Culture

Alexie points a finger at the self-satisfying ramblings of white liberals, who for all they may understand intellectually, lack any real personal understanding of the Indian condition, or of the fact that there may not even be any such monolithic condition…

Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie

Beauty and Self-Hatred in Flight

October 3, 2010 • Books, Media Analysis, Race and Racism, Society and Culture

In Flight, Alexie seems to be asking whether or not self-hatred can be neutralized through assimilation – that is, can Zits’s hatred of his own Indian-ness be dissolved into a claiming of his whiteness? Indeed whiteness itself is a product of assimilation, with Irish, Italian, German, and other European ethnicities blending within the “melting pot” to create a new racial paradigm.

Flight, Self-Hatred, SFF, Sherman Alexie

Evoking the Senses

September 3, 2010 • Books, Close Reading, Media Analysis

Within the context of the novel, these details, which might be applied to say, a cooking accident in another book, convey so much more than just how the characters physically experience the world. They express all the tension and urgency of high stakes conflict and even combat, all without mentioning any of those things explicitly.

Michael Scott, SFF, The Alchemyst

Video Games Can Never Be Art

April 19, 2010 • Video Games

I have argued in the past that video games are the ultimate form of expression, and what is art if not expression? Indeed video games are a convergence of art from just about every medium – audio, visual, literary – and their social impact is ever-increasing. Ebert makes his statement by observing video footage of a few games offered up as art, already prepared to deny the possibility. Aside from the sheer fallacy of denying art as a form of expression, there is also the matter of his evaluation not being made from the proper standpoint.

Chrono Trigger, Games as Art, Lunar, Roger Ebert

Uncharted 2 and the Burden of Awareness

October 15, 2009 • Gender and Sexuality, Media Criticism, Race and Racism, Video Games

Once upon a time, I was able to just play video games and enjoy them. I didn’t see race, I didn’t see cultural issues, or gender issues, or anything. Games, after all, were my escape from such heady things. But now I can’t help but notice them. There is hardly a movie or a game or a book where I’m not looking for and easily spotting a slew of cultural insensitivities and outright offenses that can only be attributed to the obliviousness or indifference of white game developers.

Colonial Adventures, Uncharted, White Gaze

Black, White, and Jade: Race in Video Games

February 16, 2009 • Media Analysis, Race and Racism, Video Games

As technology improves, and as the content of games expands in terms of breadth and depth, opportunities only increase for representing diversity. In the future, it will not be enough for a character to have darker skin, thicker lips, or a different eye shape. We will have to see different cultures and experiences represented as well.

Beyond Good & Evil, Black Video Game Characters, Jade

Ethnic Depictions in Video Games

January 13, 2009 • Media Criticism, Race and Racism, Video Games

Those of us who are not white, but hope to identify with the characters we play in games the same as anyone, find the industry to be deficient. At best we have had to settle for ethnically ambiguous characters, often in non-Earth settings, which while fulfilling an aesthetic need still leave players wanting for a more substantial connection. When characters of non-European ethnicities are depicted in video games, it is true that they are often stereotypes.

Final Fantasy VII, Games as Art, Stereotypes

Islam and Global Conflict

April 28, 2007 • Religion, Society and Culture

Even in accepting the apologists’ arguments, that Islam was essentially a peaceful religion, and it was only through a myopic and agenda-driven misinterpretation of the holy texts that the “Islamist” perspective emerged, there was still a problem. It seemed to me that all around the world, where there were “insurgencies” or other forms of violent conflict, at least one side was Muslim. The separatists in Chechnya, the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, the Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group in Spain, and last but not least, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda – active in multiple places.

Islam, Jihad, Propaganda

Women and Islam

April 12, 2007 • Gender and Sexuality, Religion, Society and Culture

Gender inequality, even where it takes on a distinctly “Islamic” character, is not specific to Islam as a religion, or Muslim society. Rather, it is a consequence of patriarchy – a phenomenon that knows no religious or cultural boundaries. How patriarchy manifests in any given society, the ways that people – particularly women – respond to it, are simply different. We must be careful not to presume that these differences are qualitative.

Feminism, Hijab, Islam

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