Commentary
Media, scholarly, and social movement outlets often ask me to translate my research for general audiences, especially when it relates to the U.S. labor movement, race relations, and electoral politics. Colleagues also ask me to serve as a discussant or commentator on contemporary and classical research in sociology, labor studies, and ethnic studies. I take this aspect of my job very seriously and put a great deal of effort into writing engaging pieces that I can read out loud in lecture halls and union halls alike. Below is a sample of my work.
Anti-Blackness and the historical limits of progressive trade unionism (with Venus Green)
Work in Progress, Nov 11, 2024
This piece spotlights my co-authored article with Venus Green in the journal, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. We argue that 19th century workers and labor leaders used the language of emancipation to exclude and further subordinate Black labor after the U.S. Civil War.
We'll always have Paris
ASA-CHS Mini-Conference, Aug, 7, 2025, Chicago
This piece thinks through the current political moment on the 20th anniversary of Adams, Clemens, and Orloff's book, Remaking Modernity.
The Case for an Eclectic Mass Movement
New Labor Forum, Dec, 29, 2022
To meet the challenge of the Far Right, labor activists must redefine what the U.S. labor movement is from a narrow trade union movement to an eclectic movement of unions, worker centers, third parties, cooperatives, intellectuals, and allied social movements. The coordinated action of public sector workers and the Negro American Labor Council in the 1960s suggests that we have engaged in this kind of movement building in the past and can do it again.
The Baltimore Ravens Save Historical Sociology
SSHA Annual Meeting, Nov 2, 2024, Toronto
These are my comments on Damon Mayrl and Nick Wilson's book, After Positivism. I write that there is something suspicious about so effective a book, prompting me to speculate about the editors' similarities to the Baltimore Ravens defense.
Racial Capitalism and the 2020 Election
Footnotes, Fall 2020; reprinted in Theory, Research, Politics, Nov 20, 2020
In this reflection on the 2020 election, I write that what underpins the potential election of either Joe Biden or Donald Trump is the river of racial capitalism beneath our feet.
Belt, Shovel or Bomb?
SSHA Annual Meeting, Nov 14, 2021, Toronto
These are my comments on José Itzigsohn and Karida Brown's book The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois. I ask whether the book seeks to establish a protective ring around professional sociology, excavate the racial underpinnings of modernity, or blow up sociology totally.