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Nella Larsen

Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen , born  Nellie Walker  (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964), was an American novelist of the  Harlem Renaissance . First working as a  nurse  and a  librarian , she published two novels— Quicksand  (1928) and  Passing  (1929)—and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, she earned recognition by her contemporaries. A revival of interest in her writing has occurred since the late twentieth century, when issues of racial and sexual identity have been studied. Her works have been the subjects of numerous academic studies. Nella Larsen was born  Nellie Walker  in a poor district of  Chicago  known as the Levee, on April 13, 1891, the daughter of Peter Walker, likely a mulatto  Afro-Caribbean  immigrant from the  Danish West Indies  and Marie Walker,  née  Hansen, a  Danish immigrant . Her mother was a seamstress and domestic worker. Her fat...

Internalized Racism & White Supremacy

Within sociology there isn’t a unique term for when white people enact white supremacy; we might just call it “white racism”. However we use the term Internalized Racism to denote the ways people of color adopt white supremacy. The idea here is that when people of color internalize white supremacy this often whittles at their self-esteem and may lead them to dislike the aspects of themselves that they feel are part of their non-white raci al-ethnic identity. Many people of color can easily think of times in their life where they felt shame or felt shamed by others for the non-white aspects of their identity. For instance an African American student recently said to me, “I hate my name [because it sounds Afrocentric], people hear it and immediately assume I’m loud or… you know, ’stereotypically black’.” People of color are also just as capable of using white supremacy to stereotype or discriminate against other people of color and themselves. Nathan Palmer