Joel Dinerstein

writer & professor
race, music & cool

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"The thing about race is, scientifically, there's no such thing." (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

June 16, 2015

Of course -- so why does the media work so hard to ignore this fact? Every student learns this in college and yet if you watched media 24/7 -- from Jon Stewart to CNN to Fox -- you would never learn it. Simply put: Race is a social fact without scientific basis. So maybe the Rachel Dolezal thing will kick start the national conversation we need to have. Maybe someone will even state that "Caucasians" do not exist: meaning, there is no group of Americans descended from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. As Kareem suggests, maybe we should let this woman keep doing social activism and raising her two African-American sons.

Joel Dinerstein is the author of three books on cool, including the first history of the concept (The Origins of Cool in Postwar America), the first major exhibit of cool icons (American Cool), and a corporate history, Coach: A Story of NY Cool. My TED Talk, entitled "Why Cool Matters," can be found on YouTube. I am also the author of the award-winning Swinging the Machine, a theory of swing-era jazz and technology, and Jazz: A Quick Immersion, a short history and listening guide.

I am a cultural historian and Professor of English at Tulane University, and hold a Ph.D in American Studies from the University of Texas @ Austin.

In 2014, I curated the exhibit American Cool at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. American Cool featured 100 cool icons and 100 photographs, and it was based on my historical research.