SCHOLARSHIP & PUBLICATIONS

I am a historical sociologist and public scholar whose work examines how narratives shape power—and how power, in turn, structures lived experience.

My research and public engagement focus on the ways dominant narratives influence policy, perception, and inequality, particularly across race, culture, and institutions.

Working at the intersection of scholarship and public discourse, I translate complex social analysis into forms that inform, challenge, and engage broader audiences.

My Work

Black Woman’s Burden

Black Woman's Burden examines the historical endeavors to regulate Black female sexuality and reproduction in the United States through methods of exploitation, control, repression, and coercion.

Women Confronting Terror

This article calls out state-sponsored terror against women’s bodies in ways that intertwine patriarchy with racism, class exploitation, and heterosexism.

Whitening a Nation to Enlighten a Nation: Shattering the Myth of Race in Brazil

This chapter, part of Pictures and Mirrors: Race and Ethnicity in Brazil and the United States (2009), critically examines Brazil’s long-standing ideology of racial whitening (branqueamento) and its role in shaping the country’s self-image as a “racial democracy.”

Social Rhetoric and Black Motherhood

This research identifies ways in which images of Black women’s reproduction and parenting are manipulated in order to justify ongoing regulation and dominance of Black labor.