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

Bill Cosby is an Actual Monster

July 28, 2015 • Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, 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

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

December 1, 2013 • Books, Gender and Sexuality, Media Analysis, Race and Ethnicity, 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 Ethnicity

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

Exclusion and Fetishism

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

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

Uncharted 2 and the Burden of Awareness

October 15, 2009 • Gender and Sexuality, Media Criticism, Race and Ethnicity, 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

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

A dream world shaped by children's desires.
A sanctuary…


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