Introducing: Culturelicious [The $2 Challenge]

by Latoya Peterson

When I first described the idea to Arturo, it took me close to ten minutes to relate my frustration with our limitations, the problems with our ever growing inbox, the desire to expand our content mix, and the ultimate goal of creating a space which showcased the work and creations of artists and creators of color.

Arturo thought for a minute, then summed up the entire project in one sentence:

“So, if Racialicious is the adversary, Culturelicious is the advocate.”

Racialicious focuses on pop culture critique and essays on identity. This tends to serve us pretty well. But over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed a huge glaring gap in our content – arts and culture reviews. This is partially because a volunteer blog relies on people to volunteer to review/write about a piece and that can be a pretty lengthy commitment.

For example, a series I would want to cover is Sons of Anarchy. But to cover the racial politics of a show like that is complex, and I came to the show late – 3 seasons in and there are all kinds of racial politics between gangs and the centering of Irish/American identity, as well as a white supremacist politician. To do the show justice, I would have to go back and watch the last 26 episodes, which represent about 20 hours of television viewing – if I were to just watch the episodes. However, doing critique requires a lot of rewind, fast forward, and note taking, so the time can easily double.

Remember that review I did for “My Mic Sounds Nice?” An hour long show means about four hours on the back end, gathering quotes, finding media, and writing the actual post. Even things you have to do on the fly – like the fifteen minute short “Irish Twins” I reviewed a while back – take hours to turn the experience of the film into something readable and engaging for the audience.

There’s also the issue of books. We come across some amazing reading material at Racialicious HQ, things that we want to write about but have to somehow carve out the time to do so. On my desk, I have the following books that are waiting for me to do something with them:

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